The Rail
Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our favorite emerging writers
Instead of Bad News She pours some coffee, pets the dog, and holds him off with snacks until her second cup. The headlines crawl across the bottom of the TV screen: it’s murder, scandal, mostly cloudy, and Dow Jones. “I will not waste my life,” she tells herself. “I’m finding meaning; giving and receiving love.” Her irony ambiguous as Lilith myths. The coffee’s gone, it’s still damn cold outside: 16 degrees. She clicks the dog leash, zips up tight: full armor for a skirmish with the world. Inherent Epilogues 1 But science tells us now the scenes lay out For days then months then years, but first the grayheads Naked in the rain or is this napalm Softer than your mother’s hands that fed 2 You nursing new and old imagined wounds Protection safer than a gun Dad brings In darkness shot clean through with arrows Army blanket, shroud of Vietnam 3 It’s running with you down the street, could be The spell your memory now casts, the river Recombined, the scent of vodka, blood Self-consciousness impossible to shake 4 Stop. No, go. Proceed with caution. Blood The Chorus merely, footnote to a memoir Hand atremble on the coffee cup You didn’t know to name it then Poem by Numbers Nine’s the witches’ number. Six is Satan. Seven’s God. One’s the loneliest. Two makes politics. Three’s all charm. Four means death in China. Eight’s now lying down: infinity. Five is for the no-count fingers typing this. Thomas Zimmerman (he/him/his) teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in The Beatnik Cowboy, M58, and the anthology Extreme Sonnets. Visit Tom's website here.
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