Zack Rogow
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Sample Writings


In the Eyes of the Stars

Does it all add up to zero
in the eyes of the distant stars--

our little kisses along the chin
our towers all eventually leaning
our mortal languages 
the newest metaphors still hot as ingots
our bubbling planet cooling toward frost

In the eyes of the stars
our bodies
are mere transparent jelly
our loves 
just a story 
with chemical words

The stars with their dark sunglasses
gaze on the future demise of our species
impassive as gangsters

Or is it we
who point to the stars
and lap up their sparkle
knowing they also dazzle and die

 from My Mother and the Ceiling Dancers
Picture
Picture

A Map of You

You’ve become my map, my geography:
the Black Forest of your hair,
your alpine lake eyes,
fathom after fathom,
your mouth red as turned Carolina earth,
those shoulders like Dover’s
chalk towers, your Sugarloaf breasts,
by your peninsular arms--
Baja,
Malaysian,
and your fingertips
when they touch me--
Polynesian archipelagoes. Serengeti
the temperature of your flesh.
Your Panama waist
flares to Venezuelan thighs
and between them
the Amazon, the delta, rare species
of the Galapagos, coral reefs with ultraviolet fish--
in just a few short months
you’ve become the other planet I inhabit.
And your legs taper
like a continent headed south,
one ending in Tierra del Fuego--
the Land of Fire--
and the other
in the Cape of Good Hope.

from The Number Before Infinity
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