notdeermag
For Posterity, Russell Zintel
CW: death
Our bones
We wish they were better at the connections
What gets in the way of their chipping
Not seeing pain when looking upon others
Taking being the mold for granted
The bad things nailed to the back of the shed
Ten years ago
Are going off now
What grease we used to fake it
Runs down like melted epoxy
Once might’ve been replaced with real connective
Tissue, if we’d only tried a little harder, kept our chair legs
Mirror-clean, no mud-slicked grinding
Of end against bone-end
If atonement bloomed
Healing, rather than fire
Orchid would’ve flooded
Mouths as soft and safe as petals
No grinding into sunrises
On old wagon wheels
Our mornings we wasted
By not tending gone generations
& what we admit was wasted for us
In hillsides unrecognized as hospital
Beds, & from beneath white coats
On the last days of what we were
Besides our own doctors
The skeletons of our hearts
Under April sun, holding hands
Without irony, & thinking of all but praying
For the little pond
Fishes that died
In our chests
Russell Zintel lives north along the Hudson River with his partner KT and their cat. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in decomP Magazine, Re-Side Zine, Tiger Moth Review, and others.