The HyperTexts

Bob Zisk: Unleashed

This is a recurring column in which Bob Zisk publishes poems by poets who appeal to him, and will no doubt appeal to many readers as well, along with poems of his own creation.



August 2026:

This month we feature poems by Dan Reardon, a Dublin-based Irish poet, and Bob Zisk, a peripatetic poet – perhaps a wanderer in the spiritual landscapes of New Mexico. Dan is a well-known poet, playwright and actor. Bob hosts this THT feature, Bob Zisk Unleashed.

Dan’s poem reminded me of the journeys of Brunellus in Speculum Stultorum, but Dan’s Caliban seems to partake more of good-natured whimsy than does Brunellus, the wandering donkey.

Bob’s poems arise out of a personal and recent loss. Ἄορνος was first published in The New Stylus. Among Sorrow’s Flowers, the tenth section of the sequence, Pomegranate Seeds: For my Beloved Chamchun, was accepted by The Lyric as a freestanding sonnet.

Hopefully these poets and their poems will endear themselves to the audience of THT readers.



CALIBAN ON MANHATTAN

     Caliban staggered Frank O’Hara on
A sweltering hot night in Manhattan.
He’d been rootling the woods in Central Park
Scratching round the shores of the murky lake
In search of dinner. He was ravenous
From his travels through centuries and stars.
When Old Prospero, his Master, returned
To Naples and Milan, he’d left behind
Two magic spells, the first for Ariel,
Freeing him from servitude on the isle,
Letting him fly back to the elements,
Planets and galaxies. The other meant
For Caliban but they both got so mixed,
Ariel it was, stuck fast to the rocks
And brine pits of the isle, while Caliban
Was spirited away over the moon
To this other island full of noises
Called Manhattan in the 1960s.

Our hero overturned a rubbish bin
That stank of fish and greedily dug in
To a feast of discarded fins and shells.
A man in blue came dashing down the hill 
Shouting “Hey You!” and waving a pistol.
Caliban sprang; the cop said, “What the hell!?”
And watched this rough beast dive into the lake
And claw through the slimy clumps of reeds, break
Out to the night and a nest full of eggs
On the far shore. The moorhens were agog,
Cackling and flapping as Caliban scoffed
The lot, shells and all. “Hagseed Hence!” the cop
Shouted and Caliban bounded out of 
The Park, splashed through a fountain and down Fifth
Avenue. At the Church of Saint Thomas
On Fifty Third he careened right and bashed

                    Into the beautiful Frank O’Hara
Who’d been writing his poems in MOMA
After wrapping up museum matters.
The poet, astonished by this creature
Pouncing on top of him, stinking of fish,
Dripping wet and mud streaked with only this
Filthy pair of pantaloons; O’Hara
Started to laugh flat out on the floor a
Great guffaw, “Who are you!?” he cried “Or What!?”
Frank was howling, “Caliban I am, got 
From Sycorax” O’Hara shrieked, “Oh Wow!
Oh Wow!” and Caliban barked “Bow Wow! Bow
Wow!” They both jumped up hugging and singing
“Hi Day, Hey Day” “Caliban, let me bring
You to the quick freshes and show you all
The qualities of this magical isle
Of Manhattan. Let me bring you to where
My Brave Gods drink celestial liquor.
You shall have fresh fish and berries to eat
And we will sing sweet airs that give delight,
Put fine garments on you and we’ll stroke you
And make much of you. We’ll be so jocund.
Will you go with me?” the poet pleaded,
“Aye” said Caliban, “I will.” Then they streeled
Down the street, arms entwined, hailed a taxi
And bundled themselves into the back seat
In a ball of laughs and kisses. They flew,
Scudding through traffic on Fifth Avenue,
Holding tight, riding this vehicular
Yellow barracuda to the Cedar
Tavern, wherein Willem de Kooning, Allen
Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Ken Koch, Boyfriend
Larry Rivers and Girlfriend Barbara Guest
Were all convened – The Tribe. Caliban thought
“How beauteous mankind is, how merry
And marvellous, how happy will I be
                    Carousing in this Tavern called Cedar,
With not a tree in sight, as jocular
A crowd as ever I encountered.”
And they did make much of him, gave him food
And drink. O’Hara read his poetry,
They cheered and clapped. Caliban, so happy
He bounced on tabletops danced with Allen
Ginsberg who kissed him quite lavishly, then
Larry Rivers was painting his likeness,
O’Hara pianoed sweet music as
Everyone joined hands, dancing and roaring
Out songs, then finally in heaps, collapsing
Hysterically. When Caliban began
To cry, they all went worried, laid upon
Him consoling caresses. He tried to say
His tears were joyous, his weeping jolly.
He wished he could tell how much he loved them,
How he hoped he’d never have to leave them,
How this clamorous tavern called Cedar
Was the place he longed to live forever.
But his sobs stopped his words. O’Hara said,
“Sweet Caliban, you pine for your island,
Is that why you’re crying? It’s too crazy
Here. Greenwich Village in 1960,
Not your scene, I sympathise.” Caliban
Shook his matted locks, “No! No! Manhattan
Is my island now.” He gasped, “I love you!”
They all rose up, gave huge hoorays and threw
Their arms around their new friend, Caliban.
“We love you too Baby!” and they began 
To dance and sing again and to rejoice
Beyond a Common Joy, on this wondrous
Night in New York. 
                                   But the Cedar Tavern
Must close, every revelling must end.
These poets and painters have work to do,
Soon the Sun will rise from one River, go
Clear across the island to the other
Mightier River, shining West over
The vast land of America to glow
For all the beings of this Brave New World.

Caliban was happy he had spotted 
The Two Rivers, took note of the wooded
Central Park, the lakes where he would forage.
He remembered the fountain and the Church
Where he first crashed into Frank O’Hara.
He was sure of his welcome at the Bar
Of the Cedar. He would listen and learn
From these poets and painters, the women
And men who conducted this New York School.
Caliban was eager to set his sail
On courageous ventures, bold voyages
Throughout the canyons and the lofty crags
Of this gigantic Metropolis. “Yes”
Said Caliban, “Here will I build my nest,
Here will I spin my tales of the city
By exciteful night and wide-open day.
I’ll sing loud songs with O’Hara my friend,
My poet and protector, greater than
                   Old Prospero. For Frank weaves his magic
With words, the poems he makes, his cool music.”

Caliban, at the Point of the Island,
Looked out on the sparkling harbour. The sun
Hot on his skin. The waves alive with ships
And hooting ferries. Behind him horns beeped
From squadrons of buses and cars. People
Everywhere swarming all around him. Still
He felt cocooned in a curious quiet
In the midst of this thundering tumult. 
And though battered by twangling multitudes,
He luxuriated in his solitude,
He was the most alone he’d ever been.
He marvelled, in this city of millions,
How he could be so at peace, as if rapt 
In a safe comforting blanket, so soft.
              Caliban sighed, he smiled up at the sun,
Whispered prayers to Setebos, turned for home.



Ἄορνος

Dear Love, on these cold nights, when the fine snow
Rests lightly on dark, frozen soil, Sleep tugs
My body, stretched beside you in your round-trip
Through the dark pathways of the Birdless Lands.
Under the starry baldachin of darkness
Your breasts, wrapped in a pleated quilt, rise up,
Then sink — another trailhead to Love's Mountain
And its inviolate snowfields as deep
As Time.

When, in enveloping deliria
Of dreams, in soft incursions of caressing
Time, on the sinuous shores of our Hearts' Lake,
I count the ebb and flow of breath and life,
And you stir in a moment of deep breath:
I wonder where you are, in asphodel
Or aconite, or maybe, next to springs
Bubbling up among tall, whispering poplars
At the secret convergence of cessation
And birth.

When Luna, in her frosty sleigh,
Cuts through the frozen sky, and her She-Bear
Pants her breath across the Milky Way,
I stir in twilight sleep and waning Night,
And ponder, in the tremors of my heart,
If we will wake to rose-lipped Dawn's first kiss,
Or will you take another turn through darkness,
And pass beneath the Lake of Falling Birds?



Pomegranate Seeds: For my Beloved Chamchun

One Way Passage

I cannot find a raincheck for my Love.
Here, at the edge of Styx, a cypress grove
Gives up its swift Phoenician bark to carry
Her far from me, on what must be death's ferry,

And tall, slender columns, evergreen,
Murmur darkly, erasing what has been
Only a feathery drop of vacant light
Stirred by beating wings of the black swans' flight.

II

Damask at Dusk: For Chamchun

Twilight: jacquard skies cover us
In dryness and dusk's promises.
Spring's robins almost fill my hand,
And caterpillars stripe the sand.
Come and sit with me an hour,
Love: kiss me where saguaros flower
And sweeten night with rich perfumes:
When the lone cougar whines its tunes,
Let us sip ambrosial moonlight,
And breathe the breath of shadowy night,
Where the moist, nocturnal flowers
Of twilight scent thorned cactus bowers,
     And we, in the saguaro's embrace,
     Nest in its arms, in spine-filled grace.

III

Lago del Cor

No Pilot of the Galilean Lake
Has steered his bark, as birth's waters brake
Upon our boat's curved prow. Now dirt and stone
Tug at your feet. And I must walk alone,
For vacant earth shall echo you are gone.

Dear, will we meet in the Cradle of the Sun,
Where day and night and birth and death conjoin?
Our years have fled with all we cherished here,
With all the tenderness we have held dear.
And all the love that we were wont to pledge
Must swirl in harmattans at the grave's edge.

IV

Aubade: Separation

In my heart bright stars flash and spark,
Then pull away from me.
Silver, silent, now they mark
The urgent break of day.

The night wears on and I wear out.
The sky and fleeting stars
Whisper separation and doubt
Across my heart's gray shores.

What lovelorn embers throb in my breast?
What weave of Tyre is torn
From Venus rising at cockcrow's behest?
Night's spent. Soon comes the dawn.

Day must break, and lovers part,
For night's embrace is done:
Let your absence fill my heart,
Let dark give way to dawn.

In the distance I see the rose
Of morning announce the sun.
Before the gold flames of sunrise
I see the quickening dawn.

V

Nepenthe, Grief, Wounded Love

I never knew that silence could be so loud,
Rumbling through my ears like a dark rain cloud.
Today I saw a slender robin on that fence
Near our table, the table where a young
Bird once fell from the warm nest,
Not old enough to fly or chirp in song.

This visitor in time of mourning stirred
Memories of that other little bird
That struggled to flap its fledgling wings
Under the shaggy olive's yellow flower,
Where swallowtails dance, the sparrow sings,
And morning glories spread in a blue bower.

Ah, love, do I hear you on the Spring breeze?
Will you rub and shake the long ash tree's
Pollen from your strands of fine black hair?
Will we watch the golden dusted honey bees
Sucking away with not a care,
As sunlight pixelates through the green leaves?

VI

The Soul's Vapor

You are gone, but why do I feel your presence?
Our yard's become the country of the Wounded King.
That is because cold earth
Lacks your gentleness,

For here I see you in quick, misty light,
A moonlit beam that floats in the cool evening.
Why do you avoid my touch?
Why do I grasp blank air?

Dear heart, I cannot kiss your empty vapor
Or touch your momentary streaks of light.
Yet you  remain in our past,
In now, in yet to be.

VII

Chamchun's Spring Journey

Death, you are a mighty god. You have laid
Me low and struck my beloved mistress dead.
It was late on a Sunday afternoon.
Light was failing. You called her from the room.

I think she knew you waited in the hall.
I kissed her mouth. I tried to breathe her soul.
It was an end, a lonely, bitter day.
You would not wait: you stole her breath away.

VIII

Memories of Holy Ghost

Sitting here at the edge of Holy Ghost
I ache for all whom I have known and lost—
Lovers, friends, dogs who've flopped across my knees:
Lovely as sunlight on lean aspen trees,
They have warmed me, they have nourished me,
Washed me in the green leaf of memory,
So that now, on the rocks of Holy Ghost,
I sit awhile with them whom I had lost.

IX

Desert Moon

New Mexico, you've filled my mouth with sands
Of bitterness, and crushed my heart with stones.
I reach for her sweet flesh with outstretched hands,
But cling only to discordant groans.
I hear the sharp-toothed April wind's sad moans,
The rasping doggerel of the dark crows,
And all the bare trees rattling their bent bones
Across a vastness where the sharp-thorned cholla grows.
My life is stumbling not far from its close:
Stinging brambles of moist, grievous heartbreak
Scourge me in the rich green of the Spring rose,
Our rose that bleeds fine attar of death's ache,
   Where I stand in the last rays of daylight,
   Dreaming that you will come for me tonight.

X

Among Sorrow's Flowers

Today, as I am looking at our flowers,
All planted in the weeks before you left,
I'll make cause with this little skink who cowers
Where I, wrapped in mourning weeds, stand, bereft
Of the morning star and the night-fast moon.
Forlorn, in a deep trench of loneliness,
I ache, lacerated by grief's wound,
Smothered in cerements of leaden loss:
But I'll not reach for some new epithet
Or other glittering spark of craft or art.
For there is just finality, and death,
Who needs no new trope to kindle my heart.
   Perhaps, like my small lizard, bronze and lean,
   I 'll find a twig to peel off sorrow's skin. 

***************************************

July 2026:

Aes Triplex
Triple Bronze

Illi robur et aes triplex
circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci
commisit pelago ratem
primus...

Around his breast he who first committed his fragile bark to the wild sea was gird in oak and triple bronze... (Horace Carmina 1.3)

For this issue we are presenting brief selections from the work of three poets: Patricia Falanga, Bob Zisk and Bert Schultz.

Patricia Falanga, musician, poet, lover of languages, hails from Australia. Her poetry often is also song, an ongoing unwillingness to submit to the so called "untuning of the skies." In a time when much poetry has been severed from the receptivity of the ear out of deference to the silence of the printed page, Patricia's poetry stands out because it sings.

The Years

Whooping they arrive and weeping go;
I follow where they beckon to and fro.
The seasons chase each other round the sky
And night must follow day in ebb and flow.

Each year brings its new promise, then good-bye;
Its primary objective was to die.
The fleeting years retreat into the past,
Just out of reach however hard I try.

On time's tumultuous torrent holding fast,
I cling determined to a creaking mast
And scan the sea for friends gone on before
Who perished in the season's wintry blast.

My vessel edges closer to the shore
Whose rugged outline I may not ignore,
And there, beyond the breakers’ mighty roar,
The fickle years will come and go no more.

Blizzard

Were I to be forevermore denied
Love and warmth and all that I desire,
Still the world is not so cold or wide
That I must return
To burn
And be consumed at your fire.
Snow and wind are covering
My footsteps in the snow that lead from you.
Bitter winter widens
Between your hearth and mine.
Night and blizzard tumble down together.
Forever
Together.

I Recall Love

I recall love.
It's a tale of tears and laughter;
Castles, knights and maidens,
Fairy tales of happy ever after.
Set the scene right!
Roses, sighs and moonlight.
I recall love
For it happened 
To me
Once upon a time.

Petit Menu de la Vie

Read the menu at the door!
Can you afford
Life's smorgasbord?
Dreams and illusions may greet us at dawning.
Fancy and foibles will get us half way.
Ideas and goals take us through to the evening
But all that is left at the end of the day
Is bitter despair and dismay.
Now that you are undeceived,
Just say thank you as you leave.
Recommend us to a friend!
Please do come again!

Serenata to the Moon

The sun has set behind the hill.
The moon is rising in the sky
While all around the world is still
And we are here, my pipes and I.
In the keep the sheep lie tended.
In the town whose lights I see,
In her sleep a maiden gentle
Maybe dreams a dream of me.
An owl arrests its silent flight
In answer to my plaintive tune,
My lonely lovesong in the night,
My serenata to the moon.
Since I am a lonely shepherd
I must sing my lovesong
To the moon.

Though Spring Is Here (A modern madrigal)

Though Spring is here
Its fragrant rites do not delight
Though all God's creatures
Have their way both night and day.
Though Spring is here
Its flagrant charms and open arms
Must stay unheeded
While I go my lonely way.
Though Spring is here
Its siren song is overlong
For love has left
A chastened wasteland in my heart.

You Loved Me Now

Love me now while we are young,
Before our happy song is sung,
Before the good can turn to bad,
Before the kids can drive us mad
And when "too easy" is "too hard"
And when fate deals that losing card,
Then maybe you'll remember how
You loved me now.

Land of the Didgeridoo

My heart is part of the mountains.
I fall to earth with the rains.
I am at one with the dreamtime,
Run with the emu
Over the plains.
On high I fly with the eagles.
I plumb the depths of the seas.
I dig for ants in the mulga,
Dance with the brolga
Under the trees.
My land of red and ochre,
I am at one with you.
I am in creeks and billabongs
From Muniong to Uluru.
I am part of this vast land
And all of this land is part of me.
From Uluru to the sea
My spirit wanders free.
Dingo I know and koala.
I leap with the bush kangaroo.
I am asleep in the sand,
At peace in the land of the didgeridoo.

Terra Australis

Land of the never-never,
You have been here forever,
Mountain and plain and river
Underneath these southern skies.
Deserts of red and ochre,
Rivers that plunge below
To play in the tranquil glow
Where gorges take us by surprise.
Far from the city lights,
The sheer splendour of your nights,
The stars teeming in an endless sky.
The vast silence of your days,
The trees blending in the haze,
The hills blurring in a mist of time.
Rain forest, golden beaches,
Mudflats and mangrove reaches,
Lakes where the salt lies bleaching,
Waiting till the rivers flow.
Age old rocks dare to stand here,
Tall in this ancient land here,
Just as their maker planned here
In the dreamtime long ago.
Great southern land,
Eternal you stand,
A rock as the stream flows by.
Deep in the dreaming
Time has no meaning
Under a southern sky.

Our Southern Land

There is a timeless land
Under an endless sky,
Set in a boundless sea,
Placed in a southern clime,
Just as Baiame planned
In an age long gone by,
There for eternity,
There till the end of time.
Vast open plains call me again.
This is our southern land.
I have to go. Just need to know
How the wind blows there.
Far from the lights, star-crowded nights.
This is our southern land.
Back of beyond beckons me on
Now.

Hush, My Baby (A bush lullaby)

All the stars are brightly shining
In the mantle of the sky.
Warm inside these arms of mine now,
Hush, my baby, don't you cry.
Do you hear the mopoke calling,
Hear the north wind gently blow?
Do you hear the river falling
To the rocks below?
Frogs have made a sing-song for us
In the reeds by the lagoon.
Dingoes lend a lonely chorus,
Barking at the moon.
All the sounds of sky and ground
Are singing you a lullaby.
Night has wrapped its cloak around us.
Hush, my baby, don't you cry.

*****************************

Bob Zisk has little to say beyond the acknowledgement that Patricia Falanga is a tough act to follow. The poems he offers here are grounded in recent experience.

Afternoon Oil Change

I sit here in the auto dealership.
A faint, wry smile is settling, lip on lip,
As I stare at the thin salesgirls of Spring,
Who click their phones while the young robins sing.

Out in the sales lot it's a lazy day
For auto sales, but not bad for girls' play.
The girls are smiling but there are no customers
For them to lure with smiles and tempting offers.

Their charms are practiced on their telephones
And trying all the new games and ringtones.
Their thumbs twirl with a ballerina's grace,
And not a worry crosses heart or face --

Not one concern for what the future holds,
What some clandestine mortality withholds
In fates not yet revealed as warblers cry,
And collared doves softly prophesy.

In the Spring Night

I lie on my side of our bed,
And hear your voice in an owl's call.
My pain tells me that you are dead.
This emptiness is picrid gall.

In bitterness and lack of sleep
I cannot see you whom I seek.
All I can do is hurt and weep,
And not deny that I am weak.

I cannot bear to be alone,
And I ache that you are gone.
In darkness I hear the night moan
I weep in  silence before the dawn.

Walking Alone

I have taken the left-handed path
That winds down to the black gates of death.
Wrapped in sorry weeds of strangling loss
I've stood before those jaws I could not pass.

I looked through the barred passage, stretched my hand
Through the iron grille, and touched tracks in the sand,
And in the throaty moans of somber doves,
I laid my grief among  sad, severed loves.

I turned away with empty arms. As light
Dimmed, I spun the wheel of day and night.
I knew my sawtoothed pain would scarcely matter
In the cold ebb and flow of Styx's water.

********************************

Bert Schultz is a Philadelphian poet, technical writer, and award winning film maker. He has made a widely distributed film about SDS and the Student Movement of the 60s and 70s. Bert describes his poetry as Brechtian.

The Third Kissoff

I keep telling myself -
It doesn't even rate on the scale of
Horrors of the mid-twentieth century -
The Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki
2.7 million dead Vietnamese.

Now, after 30 years, I get an email.
She goes - "How has your life been?"
I'm like - "Fine."
“Where do you live?”  “What do you do?”
“What are your kids' names?”

This goes on for a few days, then stops.
We were both very polite and friendly,
We never even hinted at the pregnancy.

She is too old now to have my child,
Her vagina must be dry and menopausal,
Her breast saggy, her breath stale,
Her anus hemorrhoidal.

My cock not as hard as during the Johnson Administration,
I'm fat and have bags under my eyes.
I snore,
And I have had extensive periodontal degeneration.

What possible fruit from this queer mating?
So why do I want her just as much?

Mostly Air

A spider web is mostly air,
Organized by strands that are
Stronger than steel, thinner than a hair.
My love for you is made of longing and denial,
Organized across the decades and the miles
By maybe a dozen touches and a dozen smiles.

**************************************

June 2026:

Six poems by Angela Segredaki ...

Angela Segredaki holds a CW degree from Oxford University and loves poetry, flowers, and people. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Blue Unicorn, The Ekphrastic Review, New Lyre, Amsterdam Quarterly, Mouthful of Salt, The Adelaide Literary Magazine, Lighten Up Online, The Dawntreader, Snakeskin and elsewhere. She’s currently collaborating with the American poet Julia Denton on a joint poetry collection.

"Since I first read poetry by Angela Segredaki a couple years ago, I have been a fan. I first knew her as an accomplished writer of formal verse. But these poems which Angela recently sent me  show that her range of expression is not confined to accentual-syllabic verse. I hope that both regular readers of THT and visitors will appreciate these very readable free verse poems as much as I do." (Bob Zisk, May 25, 2026)


Gina asks for an ice cream to feed a pigeon

flowers and freshness
painted clouds float on a blue tablecloth
where Gina just finished her ice cream.
her dress, the chair, streaks everywhere
a shared spill of sweetness.

she speaks to a pigeon, unafraid
of fingertips or open hands
loneliness is not their tongue
it pecks at little weeds, seeking seeds
and they both belong to where they stand

playing the game of being, ignoring
regrets and guilt streaks. she speaks
like white jasmine, telling truths
I’ve forgotten, while the pigeon
nods with understanding.

Gina then takes my hand and asks
in freshly grown words
for an ice cream for her bird-friend
making me wonder, how I missed 
the moment the bird said yes



Wooden Dolls’ Houses

dolls’ houses
those wooden houses
that we used to play in when
we were      little
in one room we put a bed
where our dolls dreamt
and loved dearly.
in
another room, they would sit together, together, together
and talk through the night.

wooden dolls’ houses
full of childhood dreams

wooden    people
wooden hearts
in one room

themselves

there are no other rooms



Beneath

To my soulmate Lies Nijdam

I lick my wounds in the dark
store sweetness like sunlight
keep the old spell of return.

Nothing above ground bears witness
yet every hill is swollen
the trees stripped bare
their stillness listens.

I unearth Demeter
a year that would not turn
a hand beside her
an incantation—stay
in the bruised light

Or me 
after the divorce
and the women circling close
when my life slipped its roots.

We walked like that
across days that feigned emptiness

I went low
and listened

They stayed.

Love
uprooted
goes dark
sweetens

one day 
unannounced

green,


Inheritance

A sharp sound rang upon the ground
lost in leaves
and settling shadows.
Deep in the night, my home was still
a moon moth perched
upon the sill.

The echo lingered, stirred the trees
a hush uncoiled
through ivy greens.
The wind, the clouds, the breath of frost
whispered gently
'Think what you’ve lost.’

I turned, but no one called my name
only silence 
only cold.
When all at once, I knew what broke
a button slipped from
this old coat.

The woollen coat I had on
started showing
frayed and worn.
A second button gone, not missed
the shoulders sagged 
the torn threads hissed.

The skin I wore was never mine 
a borrowed gift
I could not shed.
And as the moonbeams softly swarmed
I thought I felt
my mother’s arm.

This vagabond, too wide, too worn
held warmth I never 
claimed before.
And in the daybreak as light grew
I bore its weight and walked on
through.


Threshold, with a Horse in the Distance

Look, I thought what we built would love us enough
to take us back. The way sometimes a body forgives
a back you’ve burdened past bearing
a heart you’ve asked and asked too much.

There were days so warm I could feel my bones relaxing
like oars lifted from the water. We called that happiness:
the slow clicking of engines in the dark. 
We carried plastic bags full of fruit
apologies hanging in closets beside last year’s coats.

No villain, just the hungry habit of more:
more light, more miles, more everything. Our love
wanted to grow past its edges, like wisteria until
the fence remembers it has ribs.

I keep thinking about the first glacier between us
how it kept dripping; a language of patience
I didn’t understand. I was young enough to think
weight meant forever.

You took my hand. Your hand was weather then;
April, not August. Later the heat came
and made itself ordinary. Not all at once. Like anger:
quiet, then claiming your voice.
We conjugated it. We got fluent.

We had crossed the line where canopy becomes cinder.
The forest inside us knew before we did.
The day you broke a plate and laughed.
The day I cried in the produce aisle
without a name for it.

Meanwhile the world kept tilting toward its thick fever
and so did I. Not punishment; just the body saying enough
and the window opening.

The horse in the distance keeps running
unhaltered. The world swells beyond its limits
fissured, still leafing in the broken places.
The light is already doing its foolish, faithful thing
across the face of the water.



Mrs Prometheus

She does not remember
when the sentence was passed
only that each morning
is fastened to her.

The alarm cleaves the dark.
A small hand finds her sleeve.
Milk warms. Shoes are found.
The day begins before she does

at the sink, at the bus stop
in the fluorescent glare of the office.
It returns,
not myth
but the same precise taking:
the quiet subtraction
of what she might have been.

Still, she stands.

In meetings where her voice
is taken, repackaged, returned
with a different name.
In corridors where her body
is measured before her words arrive.
In numbers that tilt
slightly away from her.

Evening:
she gathers what remains of herself
from the margins of the day.

A voice sparked
bright as flame.
Hands, reaching.

Here,

the theft undone.
Fire passed quietly
in stories half-told.

It is not grand.
But it persists

through exhaustion
through small violences
no one records
through the long arithmetic
of being diminished
and continuing.

Tomorrow, it will come again.
And again
she will rise into it.
Not untouched.
Not unmarked.
Still carrying heat
kept alive
enough to warm 
the next pair of hands.

The HyperTexts