Leopard-Crawling Worm Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Lyall Watson says the moon determines how
we feel, full moon next week no werewolf or
vampire syndrome should appear as yet, but
I feel bad, twisted my ankle on the treadmill
it's throbbing and my head hurts

Everyone sharing my date of birth stayed home
today: one wants to resign, the other never comes
to work, another suffers sinus attacks - everything
seems to confirm Watson's Supernature theory -
I should run and hide

Even the books I read are menacing, confusion
and blackouts in Agatha Christie - the beloved
Golems suicidal in Feet of Clay, even the jokes
I read today could not make me smile, this is
pre-ordained misery

I shall sink into the pit of depression until moon
and seasons change - let me wallow in self-pity
and flee physical pain, no more treadmill until
the planets change configuration, currently
electromagnetic waves

Are disrupting the matrix of life for all January -
February born, I should join the rest, climb
into bed and not surface again until planets
have been rearranged, I cannot face
another day

As a depressed leopard-crawling worm, swollen
ankles and barbed-wire brain, crying in my
chair…