Z

Following and followed
Nerves digest quickly
The impatience of arriving too soon
No host no guests
No clues no hints
Nerves stopping up each other's
Depressions and regressions
Foot on the accelerator
Gas stations ride in subway cars

Nomenclature of the eternal
Stuck on less than an eighth of a tank
Jettisoned into the right eye
Left, was it?
No mention of heard words
None whatsoever
It flows downstream
With the blood from between her legs
Her her her knees
Hands reach
That was the next to last
Next to last
Last before
Following and followed
Fired by a cannon of birth
Into a time
On the wrong page
Obliterating with the red ink
The red that drips from between her legs
Her her her knees
Hands knuckles sting
Life bites death
Between gums spiked with skull fragments
Away and away

No mention of heard words
Paint dries off the sides of caves
Hidden from light's eraser
Pink
White
Knees
Scrawling equations
On the dark fresh asphalt
No but what
Clicking and ticking
Pressing with turns
U turns and circles
Coiling into dead ends
Where there is only room
To exhale apologies
For others

Rotating shifts
Hands lotioned with styrofoam
Earning reprimands
No host no guests
No clues no hints

Window glass
Stained
Permanent scratch
Etched with a blackened
Finger nail


- Max Stoltenberg