wrote in college listening to In Rainbows

      Scoliosis

          As I stretch
      my spine protrudes,
        sharp and vestigial,
   unfurling and cracking from
               disuse,
        a hollow, sun-dried
            amphibian,
         a string of open-faced
              barnacles
          competing for space
             on a jagged beach-rock.

                My purple fingertips
              sink into the
                  deep,
               past glass-skinned
                   glowing reefs,
               white-covered toenails
               and mottled indigo
                  knees,
            swollen-eyed fishes and
               their mindless
             prey,

            reaching,
          searching
       for something, for
         anything

     endless, solid,
     perfect, warm.