Three Poems
by Thomas Zimmerman
Poetry
Cousin Carl's Motorcycles
Maroon blue jeans, marooned in southwest Iowa,
maroon the color of the high-school team,
the Mustangs. Cousin Carl no maverick,
a champion tennis player, halfback on
the football squad. When I was ten, he rode
a Honda, heart attack at 50-something,
ashes in a Harley tin atop his sister
Nancy’s television, saw it when
my mother died. Yes, Nancy of the teenage
kisses, knees and pink nails pinning down
my prepubescent arms. Carl let me think
I hypnotized him once. I helped him clean out
septic tanks on Saturdays. He bought
the Harley after his divorce, and blamed
himself, admitted he was never home.
Flick of a Switch
A friend’s friend’s tarot deck, my childhood Ouija
board, the entrails the diviner probes:
benighted omens prompted by the beer
in front of me. They call it red: it looks
like rust. It’s garbage night. Neil Young is on
the stereo: “Old Man.” My wife is gone,
off painting Scarlet with some other crazed
dog ladies. Percy’s stuck with me, his muzzle
gray as mine and both of us with bum
left knees. I sip. It seems that someone flicked
a switch and made us old. I’ve told my buddy
Zach I don’t mind dying any time:
I’m satisfied. Reminds me of a blues
a college friend—a guy named Fate—would play.
Naïve and Sentimental Sonnet #7
So it appears that I’ve been wrong about
the world. Do we ourselves give birth to God,
as Rilke writes? A higher consciousness:
my friend Zach says he doubts he has one; I
doubt that. Of course, I can’t be sure. But, out
at night with Scarlet and young Percy—odd
pair, white and black, like stars and sky that bless
our need for opposites that match, defy
the pall of artificial light, dispel
the blinding darkness—I feel balanced, whole.
They circle like a canine yang and yin,
they sniff for messages, their bellies tell
them time of day: as senses teach the soul
to love the earth we’re on, the worlds we’re in.
About the Author
Thomas Zimmerman 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 Pangolin Review and Dirty Paws Poetry Review.