Word Geek

About 6 months ago, as I was surfing around the classifieds in Poets & Writers, I found a poetry challenge. Use the following 6 words in up to 3 poems: anteros, crippled, spindle, staircase, threshold, and whirligig. The deadline was firmer than my will to submit anything, so it came and went, but not before I scratched out an attempt.

As a word geek, I don’t allow myself to use a word until I’ve done my homework, so that meant some quality time with Merriam Webster to look up anteros. Well, in case anyone was wondering, anteros means anterior. Okay, not being one to put a dictionary down prematurely, I proceeded to look up the other five words too, just to make sure I had a handle on all of them. Good thing, too, because whirligig’s definition painted a picture in my mind. That’s just good writing, and not just for a dictionary, either.

“Spindle” really got to me, too. Aside from the meaning, it’s just fun to say. Go ahead, pronounce it a few times. Spindle, spindle, spindle. Admit it, you enjoyed that. It’s an underused word, so it was generous of the poetry challenge people to include it.
Anyway, here goes.

Best Man
By Lissa M. Hanson

“No Anteros! Dammit, anteros!”
The first crippled words Daddy whines
After the stroke spindled his brain.

But Anteros? Might he mean Auntie Rose?
For decades, I eavesdropped to catch the whispers, and
Studied the curling snapshots;

As a young bride, she seized
His teenaged heart.
He blushed and turned his face away
As she descended his grandmother’s staircase
Carnations and babies’ breath in hand,
To join him, no, her groom,
His spike-haired uncle.

On the threshold of the makeshift altar,
Her dress – the palest pink – a
Floating whirligig
About her hips, around her belly.
And he, with the ring in
His borrowed breast pocket
Wordlessly carried out his duty.