someday the whole of me
will melt away like light
November snowfall
or perhaps explode like
a home-made clusterbomb
someday the parts of me
will fester like stubble
with a tenacious grip
on my jaw, to be stripped
away with a fine Sheffield
blade or rusty hacksaw
or simply drift for decades –
unwanted thoughts cascading
down a cliff, stumbling
to find a foothold
somehow the pieces of me
will reappear as a porcupine –
spines embedded in your skin
with barbed hooks – or perhaps
as sandstone etched by wind
and water – fingerprints
preserved there for someone
to discover and blast away
in search of clay or gold
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 24, Issue 3.
James K. Zimmerman’s writing appears in Atlanta Review, Chautauqua, Folio, Lumina, Nimrod, Pleiades, Rattle, Salamander, and elsewhere. He is author of “Little Miracles” (Passager, 2015) and “Family Cookout” (Comstock, 2016), winner of the Jessie Bryce Niles Prize. He can be reached through his website, https://jameskzimmerman.net.
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