Poetry, Week 42: Joshua Zeitler

 

Transition Diary II


Hungry for panting          my wish list          explicit.

Thirsty bulb.          Pearls jaundiced          molten

in my palm again          again.          Again:          a song 

that ripens for thieves.          Again:          a thief. 

Every door          a jammed window           every window 

a keyhole          every keyhole          littoral.          All night

observed dew coalesce          on a blade:          desire 

context clue to decode          the foreign language

of desire.          Moon’s monthlong wink          permanent

marker tallies          on dry erase calendar          waiting 

for words to tug life          toward little deaths          like tides.

Vers by vers          wisps vanishingly.          Digital abyss. 

My filament glow bright fading then nudged          to dust.

 


Transition Diary IV

 
Sentences woke like wolves          near to each other          but not 

touching          haunting the crepuscule          roaming in ravenous packs 

jaws yawning          encircling a cabin          at wood’s edge. 

Who could sleep          through howling           echo of pawprints in snow? 

I’m getting tired          of dark figures          of speech.          For once

let wolf be wolf          let hunger be hunger          let starlight 

be distant fire and hold out          a wick to it.          I want to 

understand          the night watchman said          bearing 

his empty candlestick          long into the morning dark.          Told him 

Before the wolf was born          I knew          she would wander 

farther than any other animal.                    How could I tell him 

there was no wolf?          No cabin          no wood          no night to watch.

 

 

Joshua Zeitler is a queer, nonbinary writer based in rural Michigan. They received their MFA from Alma College, and their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Foglifter, wildness, The Shore, and elsewhere. They are the author of the chapbook Bliss Road (Seven Kitchens Press, 2025).