A Tangled Spiral by Laurel Kahaner
She climbed
the Spiral Staircase
carefully,
remembering
the slinky she’d played
with as a child, wondering
if Amy Dudley has any thoughts
as she tumbled down the staircase
to her death, feeling the cool coiled metal
slinky between her hands
like a wayward accordion,
imagining her marriage as a coiled spiral
gyrating from one hand to another in a
caterpillar crawl then suddenly
jangly, losing the rhythm, dangling
dangerously down to the ground,
unable to be untangled,
though she preferred
the image
of the slinky
when it hit the ground crawling
down stairs of its own volition
until it stopped.
Splash Fiction 