zinc words & images

  • True promise

    Lessen the lively way You say, forever. Forever Is not what you think it is.   Burnished steel with oil And old cotton shirts. Buttons On fire when the world ends.   Is it a guidepost or clock, An imperceptible second or The sun’s arc across the sky.   More so fatal reasoning And an…

  • Threaded Through the Air

    On my way home I saw a song or rather I felt a song and saw the man singing it. He was on a street corner bus stop, waiting, mouth open, leaning back for diaphragm’s sake. The sound traveled through my closed window and I turned to look and thought, yes, I feel that way,…

  • Woven

    ‘I’ve run in the winter With cold feet, brittle ice Sending angled signals Away from me as if The ice beneath me must Warn its brethren.   We are shod in last year’s Season, found by our mothers, Discarded by Autumn, But still something of our own. When the tapestry Of suspended water   Subsides…

  • Invention

    People are capable. Marigolds become brittle. What was worn is new. Fire escapes rain down Particles of soil seeping through the drainage Holes of a city garden. It is in the rust That change comes And in the taut drum Sound. Golden polish buffed With an old t-shirt And ignored by children Looking at clouds.…

  • Small Sights

    the bricked-up door manages all my visions. before i wake i hear the birds beyond mortar. from the bed with disrupted comfort, they remind me of what needs to be done. perch on. what is missed beyond that tree?

  • On the Walk

    Come to me When you are done measuring Yourself against the wind. I will put down my rake And welcome you as if You had never left. The chair faded from afternoons of sun And nights of dew Will be waiting In the northwest corner of the garden, Where you can watch The birds create…

  • Measured

    I took the bird wing from the shelf And placed it in a pouch of red gingham. A bundle misshapen and lonely, save For its solitary companion, a tin ring, found trapped in the quarter slot Of a gumball machine. I do not know Where this gift will find its resting place. From my place…