{
  "title": "Spirit Animal",
  "author": "Lisa Maraventano",
  "copyright": "Copyright 2026 Lisa Maraventano. All rights reserved.",
  "poem_count": 17,
  "last_updated": "2026-10-12",
  "poems": [
    {
      "number": 1,
      "title": "Men are on the menu",
      "text": "I’m chewing through the men today\nSome are tasty\nSome get spit out\n\nListening to American Idiot\nThis Labor Day\n\nKnowing I am one for sure\nNot in Umbria, not in Rome\nIn John or Gianluca’s bed\n\nIn my own bed\nThe one I made\nAnd make every day, David\nLike I did New Year’s with Nunzio\n\nI Just Can’t Get Enough playing now\nMaybe I’ve been Moloch this whole time\n\nDevouring, consuming\nCome get in this bed, you cowards\n\nLet yourself be eaten\nThen find yourself released"
    },
    {
      "number": 2,
      "title": "You are tall",
      "text": "You are tall\nYoung slender willows\nLeaves dancing\nAnd wonder about the stump among you\nLet the axe grind\n\nI have daughters\nJust like you\nBorne and raised off this back\nI envy no one\nNo one their youth and beauty\n\nLife is hard, my willows\nIf you can wander far and wide\n\nAnd end up back in the same spot\nTransformed yet still the same as ever\nThis is all that can be asked of the wind\nEvery leaf new in spring, gone by winter"
    },
    {
      "number": 3,
      "title": "I saw her in the clouds",
      "text": "I saw her in the clouds\nDriving down College Street in Fayetteville\nTop down on my new car\nI had been looking for her\nMy spirit animal\nMaybe it was something I had read\nOr heard in conversation\nSome fad at the time\n\nWas mine a bear, mama those years\nA phoenix, a turtle, a rabbit, a deer\n\nI didn’t know\n\nI let the wind blow in my hair\nAnd headed toward the mall\n\nHer tail twitches\nAway the flies\nWhile she licks her paw\nClean of blood\nThe gold heat blends her coat\nTo match the palette of the earth\nShe is not hungry now\nThose around her are eating their fill\n\nIndolent mate, but still hers\nA few thorns around fable ready\n\nA mouse or two to ignore\n\nThe cubs long gone into the wild\nNothing left to do but bask in the sun"
    },
    {
      "number": 4,
      "title": "Maid of Honor",
      "text": "Today is Genevieve’s birthday\nMy maid of honor\nAt the wedding so long ago\n\nShe’s gone now\nPart of the clouds\nFree, she told my sister\n\nArtist, mermaid, fairy queen\nThe system used and broke her\nDestroyed the living magic\n\nThe details are important\nBut I won’t recount them here\nThese words are for something different\n\nThese words are to hold\nThe beloved to the light\nThis sunrise, this day\n\nEven though she is free now\nAnd probably has more fun than I do\nSetting up the sunrise\n\nFor me."
    },
    {
      "number": 5,
      "title": "Not a team player",
      "text": "The world is lying to you\nJust ask it\n\nYou know that phrase\nIf it is too good to be true\nIt probably is\n\nThe benefits of teamwork\nStronger together\n\nBullshit\n\nWhen the world force-feeds you doctrine\nChoke on it\nSpit it back out\n\nBecause it’s lying, this world\nNot Mother Earth, no\nThe world of men.\n\nOne person\nGrounded in truth\nResisting the lie\n\nIs stronger\nThan an army of automatons\nHuman or otherwise\n\nWhether or not\nYou are delivered from the fire\nDo not bow to the false gods\n\nDo not bend your knee\nTo the tyrant\nPretending to be\n\nA team player"
    },
    {
      "number": 6,
      "title": "Waters of September",
      "text": "Happens every year\nThe mourning as summer ends\nTears I don’t shed but carry inside\n\nIt was, as usual,\nA glorious summer\n\nI don’t take them for granted anymore\nOne will be my last\nOne Christmas will be my last\nOne spring\n\nSo each one becomes more with its passing\nKnowing they are finite\nAnd complete\n\nI want to cry these tears\nLet the waters of September\nPour forth\n\nAnd you know the Brazilian song\nThat already says the same thing\nIn a world upside down\n\nWe are not the first nor the last\nTo carry tears for this world\n\nAnd the seasons all pass\nAll of our seasons"
    },
    {
      "number": 7,
      "title": "Fling Before the Ring Jam",
      "text": "Once I asked Stan,\n“How do you do it?\nHow do you know what to play?”\nHe said, “Listen to the music.\nAdd what is not there.”\n\nBut I can’t sing like y’all do.\nI can’t get up in front of a crowd\nand hold them in the palm of my hand,\nAs the voice goes up and down.\nAll the notes that God has made,\nAnd you just transport them\nto a form of ecstasy and joy.\nThat’s not my talent.\n\nMaybe this isn’t either.\nMaybe this is all bullshit,\nbut if it’s anything, I will try.\nI will try to stand up at the microphone,\nin front of that group at Red’s tonight,\nand say to y’all...\n\nWe live here in the palm of His hand\nthat holds us.\nHe writes the stars,\nHe writes the lines on our palms\nand on our faces.\nAll we gotta do is keep on going.\nWorry is the greatest sin,\nthe one that blasphemes the Holy Spirit.\n\nSo all I want you to do tonight\nis drink another beer,\nhold on tight,\nlisten to the music,\nlisten to the singers.\nLet their voices charm you\nand chime against the hour.\nBecause we’re only here a few minutes,\nLet’s make them count.\nLet’s dance out our measure."
    },
    {
      "number": 8,
      "title": "Bread",
      "text": "I gave you my best\nFlour yeast water salt oil\nAnd you gave back crumbs\n\nLittle red hen knows it’s time\nShe learns to do for herself."
    },
    {
      "number": 9,
      "title": "Tuesday Happy Hour",
      "text": "“All black women\nDo not look the same.”\n\nShe said that to me\n\nI really thought\nWe had hung out\nBut I guess I was wrong\n\nI’m pretty sure I’ve seen her before\nAnd recently, like maybe Saturday\nAt the Matchbox\n\nAnd maybe we didn’t hang out\nMaybe I just saw her\nAnd maybe she saw me, and doesn’t like me\n\nBurning a bridge\nWhile it’s being built\nMeans it will never get done\n\nI ain’t gonna fix Mississippi\nBut you sure ain’t either\nNot like that\n\nI’m pretty sure I did meet you, Casey\nOr see you somewhere.\nNow I’m pretty sure we did not hang out.\n\nI’m sorry if I offended you\nI don’t mind that you offended me\nIt’s good to find the soft spots\n\nAnd yes it’s tender to the touch\n\nI am not black\nI am not white\n\nI am going gray, but that’s a different subject\nSo maybe give an old gray woman a break\n\nAnd in my story here\nI will end on this:\n\nWe can both be wrong\nWe can both be right\n\nThe main thing is we can both be\nAnd share the peace"
    },
    {
      "number": 10,
      "title": "Wednesday, Coffee Hour",
      "text": "7 o’clock in the morning\nAnd I was talking to the dog.\n“Julia,” I said, “Maybe I should write\na poem about you.\nI don’t want to write anymore about me.\nEnough is enough.”\n\nThen I thought about some conversations\nI heard yesterday\nThey were litanies of other people’s tragedies, and their own,\nlike life is a series of events\nAnd we are here as passive receptors\nOne tragedy after another\n\nAnd I don’t think that’s right.\nI think you gotta—what’s the phrase?\nTake the bull by the horns?\n\nBut then another cliche came to mind\nThe bull in a china shop.\n\nThe bull started talking to me.\n\n“What the fuck am I doing in this china shop?\nI’m gonna break every piece of this china.\nI don’t give a fuck about china.\nI should be under the trees, smelling the flowers.\nFucking all the cows.”\n\nSo I don’t know if you’re the china shop, cataloging breakage\nor if you’re the bull.\nI don’t know if you’re the bullfighter\nor the bullshitter.\n\nBut this poem didn’t turn out to be about the dog."
    },
    {
      "number": 11,
      "title": "Camp Life",
      "text": "Feel like I’m in Meatballs\nWhich you might not remember\n\nBut if you do\nYou’re a meatball too\n\nWe knew the future was scary\nSo we did the only brave thing—\n\nWe lived."
    },
    {
      "number": 12,
      "title": "The Nameless War",
      "text": "Everything has been codified\nAnd categorized\nExcept this—\nThis nameless war\n\nNo algorithm will tell you\nThe truth\nNo feed will nourish\nWhat can’t be consumed\n\nNo flesh will please you\nNo fantasy fulfill you\nIsolated from the one right next to you\nScrolling along\n\nGames, gaming\nBlind in your helmet\nGridiron, virtual\nTrusting the score is kept\n\nWe spin and spin\nDisk-driven dervishes\nMinds and men on record\nNothing lost, nothing gained\n\nThe mosquitoes don’t ask questions\nThey still come through the open window\nTo bite us\nAnd drink our blood"
    },
    {
      "number": 13,
      "title": "Code Word",
      "text": "Breath over water\nThe first moment of creation\nBefore the creation\n\nWhen time began\n\nA new time forms\nHovering, formless\n\nWhat shape shall we give it?\n\nFiat lux\nMotto to minds\n\nThe name is the code word\nThat spells out a meaning\n\nCipher it and see\nNo shadow—\nProjection\n\nWe are all on cave walls\nCome into the light\nCome toward the sun\n\nScire—conscire\nTo know together\n\nCode, codex, caudex\nTrace to the root\n\nOne, with meaning\nOnly in relationship\nTo one another\n\n—Maraventano"
    },
    {
      "number": 14,
      "title": "Stack: A fable with pancakes",
      "text": "Someone gave her a bag of chickpeas. She let them sit around for a while, until one day she decided it was time to cook up every old thing in her kitchen, clean it out, then start over. She’d heard of aquafaba, the water from the chickpeas, and asked Claude what she could do with it. “It makes a good egg substitute,” he said. “You can freeze it in an ice cube tray. One cube is about one egg.” This was good news, because she was out of eggs and wanted to make pancakes. She whipped up the milk, flour, sugar, and salt. She put the frothed aquafaba in. But she also didn’t have baking powder since she’d quit baking so long ago. “Use baking soda and vinegar,” Claude told her. “Add the vinegar last for best rise.” So she made her unorthodox pancakes, one after the other. The first ones were a little burned; she had the pan too hot. But eventually, as the stack grew, the pancakes became perfect. The best pancakes in the world are made with bean juice and vinegar. And the fact that the world could still surprise her was delicious."
    },
    {
      "number": 15,
      "title": "The door",
      "text": "I had a friend with a brown door\nAnd no job\n\nShe had looked and looked for a job\nAnd she had looked and looked at her door\n\nWhich she wanted to be blue\n\nThings got pretty bad\nFor a while there\n\nHard choices, sacrifice\nNo hot water\n\nBut she kept going\nKept looking, chin up\n\nOne day, she went to the paint store\nAnd on this spring day\nPainted that damn brown door\nShe’d never liked\n\nParisian Patina\n\nI went over to her place\nTo admire her door\nEven though I thought she might\nBe a little crazy\n\nBut there she was in the April sunlight\nHappy with her blue door\n\nAnd I knew courage then.\n\nOf course, she got a job\nSoon after, back on her feet\n\nWhich carried her far away from me\nAnd her newly painted door\n\nBut whenever I’m blue\nI think of that day\n\nAnd get out my swatches\nLook for something to paint"
    },
    {
      "number": 16,
      "title": "On trickery",
      "text": "One trick the magician\nCannot learn\n\nHow to put the cat\nBack in the bag\n\nAt some point\nThe cat herself\nWas tricked\n\nInto the bag\nIn the first place\n\nBut now she’s learned\nOur little pussycat\nNow she knows\n\nWhat teeth and claws are for"
    },
    {
      "number": 17,
      "title": "Happily ever after",
      "text": "Happily ever after\nIs not written in fairy tales\nThey don’t talk about waking up\nOn a fall morning and making coffee\nWatching the pecan tree leaves drift down\nThe monarch migration, the change in the weather\nDog asleep under the table\n\nIn the stories, the hero and heroine\nRide off into the sunset and out of our sight\nWe witness their story of coming together\nBut have no interest in what happens next\n\nHappily ever after is different than I thought\nWe can write it ourselves\nThe adventures or routines that make us happy\nA time and place that gives both—\nStructure and freedom, peace and dancing\n\nThis is mine, these days\nAs the world winds down\nOr at least my world disappears\nFading off into a sunset\n\nMe? I wait for the stars"
    }
  ]
}