The Length of Water is Not Desert
after Chukat Book of Numbers 19:1
first it shall come to slaughter
crimson stuff
the token of night on your head
as the cow burns in the hallway
as we spend a limitless time
in the Tent of Meaning
on the third and seventh day
a mess of blankets, ice packs
controlled burn through a land of tattoos
I am not clean and shall never be clean
I am outside of the tent
punching rocks for water
the self can evacuate
at the speed of drugs
and handwashing
hyssop over one palm
and then the other
you were gold not red not sin
cure as immeasurable water
before disease
I stop at the jetty to talk
to be dust sprayed
to be made laughable
not blood, not disease, not fire
and on the other side of the ocean
is another ocean
Send Utopia
For the first time in a week
I can lift both arms
over my head
to hold the fog
for a minute at a time.
Bending back a year
with my tongue,
out of groove.
In the mornings I whisper
for a blue sky,
the power to send it away,
or possess it in captivity.
Loss is two oceans:
the preview and the wake,
becoming old waves
waiting to be recharged.
To be in the midst
between boats
spraying inhumanely
our uncoordinated histories
from the distance of each hotel
on the balcony
thunder, never intended
to be generous.
Desperate in a parking lot
to shoot in the rain,
or be open
at all hours.
In the next morning
a mess of gray hair
at the counter
repeating the same order
for seven decades.
To join the support group
but never show up;
breaking all the keys.
Lose the notebook
that tells you where the stent will go.
I am picking blueberries
in New Hampshire, nothing state
on a new mountain
without body workers,
just some red squirrels.
I am still operating under
the premise of spontaneity.
We must go
in an hour,
back to the night-street.
Instead of a gun
you pull a rope
and make it to safe landing
to somewhere I cannot know.
It’s missing the point,
it’s where you go unwritten
on the rock where we began;
a silent war of teeth and tines.
Each red moon
slices just under the nail.
A just pushing off
faces discomfiting.
I feel us all emerge—
eyebrows messed
and hair cowlicked,
not unlike the fields we entered.
I am tired of driving
into the same intersection.
I’ll wait outside the door
and sit like a perimeter.
I will sit and lose my sight,
I don’t need it anymore.
ZACHARY ZALMAN GREEN is the author of The Number You Are Trying to Reach (Quotidian Press, 2017). His work has appeared in Tammy, Court Green, interrupture, Whiskey Island, Ilk, Columbia Poetry Review, Jellyfish Magazine, and elsewhere. Find him @honourablementions (Instagram) and @zacharyzalman (X).
SONALI ROY is a freelance writer taking interest in holistic approaches for maintaining good health both for humans and their nonhuman friends, business management, latest science discoveries, technology, robotics, archaeology, architecture, food & nutrition, history, spirituality, unexplained, and art & culture. Besides, she’s a passionate traveler & photographer, music composer, singer, painter, 3-D art designer and practices yoga & meditation regularly. Devoted to vegan diet, she enjoys creative writing. Sonali is accompanied by the sweet memories of her 8-yr old canine friend Fuchoo, who left her forever last year.
