ZACHARY SCHOMBURG

This Growl Is Not Yours

Today you think you saw a bear with no legs. You think you understand what it is like to think you see a bear with no legs, to think you hear a bear with no legs growl for the longest time, low to the ground, and then stop growling because it grows tired, to think you see it staring at you, after growling, like you’re some kind of savior, to think it fears you, to think you see love in those eyes. You think love is to save. But what do you do with a bear with no legs? How do you save a bear with no legs? What kind of savior are you? If you were a true savior you would know this Growl isn’t yours. Then you think you heard a voice. And the voice, you think, said This Growl, this Growl is not yours. There is no bear with no legs. It is winter on some horrible planet.

The Black Hole

When I show someone the black hole it is difficult for me not to push them into it. I’m not sure what that means but it frightens me. Sometimes when I go to the black hole by myself, I’m afraid I might jump into it despite my own resistance. I’m afraid of myself. It’s as if I’ve been given someone else’s heart and someone else has mine, as if our hearts had been switched while we slept. One day, when all the continents have been buried in ocean, we’ll slowly float past each other in our little boats, hearing our own hearts in each other’s chest, and watch each other like stars we don’t know are dead.

The New Infinite Plain

The trees

gather

their root systems

into enormous

cramped fists.

The sky is brown.

The clouds are pinkish grey.

One cloud is shaped like a cave with a rib cage gate.

Wolf on a leash,

where will you take me tonight?