by Thomas Zimmerman
second hand
a jackknife swirling round the dial a crow
wing circling round my dreaming face it’s Dad
again he’s dead again // yes buried in
his uniform they had to slash the back
to make it fit in front those decades’worth
of booze his deathbed question “is this all”
it strikes me now that he referred to me
// i still remember two beers drunk he’d pinch
his nostrils sing old cornball country honk
fourth beer John Philip Sousa records’ blare
// he liked a clock with digits not a face
too shy to ask the time // these reconstructions
time & memory of it things & words
for them a person’s better than a poem
waiting room
low clouds a busy street i’m in a waiting
room windshield repair young guy to fix
the ding first thing he told me that’s a big ’un
// rumpled GQ magazines to thumb
through drug cartels & undercover ops
the topic on talk radio // i’m thinking
of the beer that’s chilling in the fridge
at home the good French poet that i’m reading
everything’s an elegy to him
i get it // now the sun glows weakly clockface
puzzled missing hands eternity
accrues like debt no not sure what that means
i shouldn’t take a notebook everywhere
i go each page reads like a ransom note
****
Thomas Zimmerman (he/him/his) teaches English and directs the Writing Center at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in dadakuku, Rawhead, and Wailing and Gnashing. His latest poetry book is Free Range Angels (Cyberwit, 2025).
Website: https:/thomaszimmerman.wordpress.com