√ Some people think a centipede’s biggest problem is finding enough socks. 

And I’m not gonna lie. It’s an issue. 

Others think it’s love of the damp. 

The arid are always opposed. 

But the real crick in the neck is that itch you just cannot scratch. 

All those legs and not a one can reach the base of the spine, 

That place where a human keeps its hardest diamond of a bone—its sacrum. 

Humans like to cup each other’s, cradle it. 

I should know. I’ve seen them do it enough. 

I’ve even trekked across a few in the dark, occasionally taken a bite. Watched it swell. 

Just leaving them a place to scratch they can’t reach. 

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Kate Bowers

(she/her) is a a Pittsburgh-based writer whose work has been published in The Ekphrastic Review, Rue Scribe, and Sheila-Na-Gig. Her work also appears in two anthologies: Pandemic Evolution: Poets Respond to the Art of Matthew Wolfe (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2021) and The Gulf Tower Forecasts Rain (Main Street Rag, forthcoming in 2025). Kate is an alumna of Tupelo Press’s 30/30 Project and serves as a volunteer social-media team member for The Ekphrastic Review.