I Dream My Ex Is
calling me I am eighteen trapped want to cut
over the phone she says casually as clipping
her nails slave to the grave I gave in casually
as kissing a statue something grave or
engraved I was a shaven boy then a pawn
the game spiraled on the stars swiveled like god
drunk in his leather chair calling me casually
want to cut over the phone little shaven boy I cede
& recede not unlike the drugged moon’s tides
with my shitty flipphone I trapped the drunk
stars the partying planets divining something
I suppose calling me trapped is another way
of saying I wanted to cut myself like a statue
from THE BIPOLAR ACROSTICS
Beauty maddens me.
I have seen the ravens circling, full-throated, furious,
Proud
Of unnamable things.
Loss feathers within.
And how about you, are you
Ready to go cage shopping?
___
Boneheaded,
I desecrate another
Perfectly fine morning.
Old habits etcetera etcetera.
Longing, language, leather.
All the same to me. Nothing to
Read between these lines.
___
Bishops couldn’t keep me still. Best friends couldn’t stop
Illness’s slow crawl south down my spine. God
Pluck me
Out the open window—or at least a gram of guidance.
Light, apparently, is essential. Mornings,
Apparently, are known to be awful. I’ve
Read so much about myself.
Zachary Bond’s writing has appeared both online and in print, most recently in Boudin. He has received the Beatrice Daw Brown Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2020 Iowa Review Award.