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).