zinc words & images

  • 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.

  • Correlation

    To start with salt is the explanation I heard in history class. Salt builds civilizations. But I reckoned this with the kitchen table. And how often the hand came down next to the shaker.

  • 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…

  • Cacophony of Pain

    We stump our toe in one place and remember the way it breaks, snapping bone made brittle. No open palm stops the compressed flesh from yellowing , no kisses or tender words remainder the pain. We repeat as if it was new and not the time after the time we lost count.

  • Yes

    Catastrophe abounds when you reach behind me to touch my hair and whisper, “Shush, it’s the night and I am here to save you from yourself.” I can only see beyond the castles and trees moving with respirative awareness and think, “You are the end of me.” Your wordless presents prevent my absolution from the…