Neck Bones

”Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.”

--Samuel Taylor Coleridge



“Say that word again and I’ll wring your neck.”

Shit, Grandma means business! Having witnessed

an execution destined to become savory dinner

an hour before, I feared for my own slender tube.



Column of bone and sinew, conduit of blood and

nerve, vulnerable nexus of head and body, worthy

of protection. Leather neck, red neck, bull neck,

pencil neck, all dangerously exposed to peril.



“Stop riding your bicycle with no hands. You’ll

break you neck.” Always the neck! The warning

grabbed my scruff like a feline mother, quashed

the perilous experiment, probably saved my neck.



“You’re being a pain in the neck. Go play outside.”

Seeking adventure, I wandered into unfamiliar

territory. “Hey kid, what do you think you’re doing

here? Not from this neck of the woods, are you?”



“What’s with the Albatross?”



Lynn Norton