A scientist tells NPR-
Vultures poop on their legs to regulate their temp.
A reporter engages this entropy in a teasing blurb.
She will tell us more later because
there’s a twist in the Twistar human trafficking case.
A gymnastics coach pulled a move called a Geddart-
Nimbly avoided collision with his secrets
and offed himself. How? That itself is a flipping secret.
Imagine he reached for a high bar, twisted a rope, climbed into a loop,
fell without a spotter, then did what the hanged do-
let loose himself a segue –
shit cools the scavenger’s legs
About the Poem
I wrote this poem in response to hearing the morning news on a Virginia NPR news station in late February. Accused abuser and gymnastics coach John Geddart was found dead at a rest stop by way of suicide. The sequence of the stories that morning was interesting to me – the tease about the vulture story, then the vague report about Geddart that did not specify the method of suicide, followed by the vulture story. The poem wrote itself. Gymnastics got me through my childhood. As an adult, I still flip around. I admire the women who are stepping up to reveal the extent of the abuse and to reform the sport. I am saddened by what they have endured at the hands of “trusted” adults.
About the Author
Krista Genevieve Farris writes about anything and everything from her home at the Top of Virginia in Winchester. Links to her published poems, stories and essays can be found on her writer’s website.
This is brilliant!
Perfect.