Thrush Poetry Journal
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Jaime Zuckerman
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Poem for the Nestling that Died in a Blue Soup Bowl
 

body pumping / like a slow and ugly heart

ragged early feathers / and all that fear

globed eyes and ear holes / that are cathedrals

the tiniest cathedrals / just filigree

and pink nerve endings / I look right in

where the small organ hums / I whisper

I lost my job I loved / a decade disappeared

I don’t know who I am / or what I’m doing


your body pulses / there in your bowl  which is

a sky that will actually hold you / and not let go

here : my open palms / I’ll keep you warm

for one more hour / because you won’t eat

I have nothing else / to give

you will die tomorrow / but for now live

live improbably




Jaime Zuckerman is the author of two chapbooks, Letters to Melville (Ghost Proposal, 2018) and Alone in this Together (Dancing Girl Press, 2016) as well as recent or forthcoming poems Diode, Forklift, Ohio, NightBlock, Foundry, Hobart, Vinyl and other journals. She serves as the poetry editor of Redivider, the art director for Sixth Finch, and a senior reader for Ploughshares. She grew up in the woods but now lives and teaches in Boston, MA.




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