zinc words & images

  • Musings on a Single Topic #1

    What is left behind? Me You We Paper clips and candy wrappers Friends from high school Friends from college A car, in the parking lot of a bar, when you’ve had too much to drink A CD, a favorite one, in 1998, in your ex’s car Doggie bags full of leftovers A credit card A…

  • Grower Hope

    Holding this blueberry in my hand, I do not know where it came from or how it will grow. The ground is too shallow here, stained with saltwater and filled with debris. Skree is really all it is, no place for this tiny thing to root. I must be delicate, otherwise its blue will leave…

  • Making the Night

    Stringed night Moonbeam notes Play along Crowns and crests. Billowing darkness, So rich I could grasp And fold the warm night Toward my body, having It for myself. Lyric leaves Whisper, sowing my mind With drowsy songs That open my Skin to every breeze. Forest floor, papered, Over time gathers The lunar composition That streams…

  • The Valley and Its Way

    Brittle wishes Beneath inkwells And round shaped vowels. Clinical machine, who Are you That burns ash, A fire shoreline? We, them Crisping in the sky Unto a copper morning, A clouded patina.

  • Dinner

    I say a prayer Over This plate of rice And question whether I am worthy Of One Single Grain. I know this is not What prayer is for. There is no comfort In silence. And the wintering Of my bones Is the only answer To my questions. Short and hard Are my days, The design…

  • Recording Device

    I can feel the beat. You walking through the door. Me listening at the door. The slightly humid room you would like to escape from. The air conditioning kicks on with a sputter as you turn it down one degree at a time like a safecracker. The shirts folded where you left them: in the…

  • Midnight Snack

    Kitten calls are the way to find out nature is in your living room. It wakes me at 2am every night. Bladder and cat food, like clockwork. Between popping the top off of the purina bin and glancing at my own nighttime reflection in the dining room mirror, I begin to wonder if I am…

  • Listening

    I let the pigeon go. It wept in my hand and ringed its neck, left and right. Against a brick wall, I was shattered from listening to the coo that never left.

  • Long Walk

    Regulate my temerity, but lust for the bastions, where roses and a deep sigh wait. Beekeeping myself against waxed rows and granular helpings of pine-scented lips. Retire this feeling beneath the decking boards and the sunlight relish, that lift my shoulders beyond where I knew they could be. Shanks and beatitude for the trees and…

  • To My Friend, On the Occasion of the New Year

    Keep trying. The end may be nigh, but you aren’t. Whether you disappear beneath the ground or into the sky- whether we return to our mother’s wombs on our weeping knees, or settle into salty oceans, you and I are fathoms we cannot depth. The inkblot, the zeroes and ones that trail our names are…