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).