Change Ahead

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Change Ahead

Michigan—We had so much rain
and lightning shooting into life
last night that worms are advancing,
forming their lines in the streets,
wrestling with asphalt, terrain,
finding ways to extend their white,
pink, and six-inch ruddy selves
into the margins, signaling change
ahead like a barricade of brown,
like miniature rusted silos, moving,
where he says in his yard, I used
to work up there at the co-op, but
they’re going to move those silos—
someone wants them for a recording
studio, he says, scraping fingernails
against siding like a twisty worm—
so, I walk farther, past four-leaf
clovers and a freckled girl, where
worms crawl under her feet, but
her face is smiling like change.

Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.

Touch of Air

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Touch of Air

In floats and waves, to a sedge
of six sandhill cranes overflying
in a four-cycle chortle—I attempt
to imitate their calls from marsh
perch, warmed in my comforter,
in my own bed, but tongue won’t
curl around sound—and you say
you want to cuddle, falling into fog
—so, I massage your thigh, once
severed, bone cut, implanted,
gusseted like foul, sagging in a bog
of depression that warms turkeys;
we respond to healing as a touch
of air: simple needs that sound
so far away, as cranes massaging
breezes, waves of sound, hormones,
your breath becoming more assertive,
from your mouth, convulsed, as you
turn, raise yourself up, and—in this
moment—grasp, spring, to nose
upward and interpret, as if to fly.  

Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.

Plain Margins

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Plain Margins

Lenten rose closes its shutters like waves
of yellow bikes tipping one onto the next
by the bookstore, where he shifts his eyes
from you to the garbage—ignoring you
like landmines ready to trip him up along
the street of your face that, he thinks, falls
toward the low end of redbuds under sugar
maples, gazebo of cellar doors; neighbors
who don’t look at you or walk on your side
of the street—little topiaries before dogs
bark nonsense; cats of Saturday morning
cartoons, children walking fog-like, as baker
opens his Little Library by the park vines,
good morning only for morning glories—
admiration comes from bees, coneflowers,
for whom you would give away all your
garden for a margin you could call plain.

Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.

Anonymous

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Anonymous

New Mexico—I know casa
of pecans, orchards dusting
mirage men traveling, helicopters
over pine mountains, sights
too complex to read, face of rocks
in a valley town, with a shed
as his home—and as he rises
from his cot, neat, beside rake,
hoe, blanket—he gives me no name,
to be anonymous, but extends his
chapped hand and a frame for photos,
twisted from cigarette packs, where I
keep a picture of my parents, the base
laced with twine, standing as artwork
—protected brown and crème in plastic
wrappers, tight as a hairline—and I
didn’t think to offer him payment
for his work, as we rarely do, we who
assume everything as entitlement—
so, now I hold the frame like his
fingertips are touching mine, with
all the anonymity of cellophane.

Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.

Curl

Photographer - Tobi Brun

Curl

Our community sits with trees,
where we come to speak—
not knowing how to thicken
mossy fuzz so trees will listen;
but our words curl before them
as the shaking of girls’ heads,
all in luxurious order, while
we hold our breath—sharing
exhalation, not as object,
but as the coming inhalation:
a community hairy with roots,
leaves, stomata, where trees
make our words wave, bounce
—we cannot grasp perfect sheen
without their air—so, comb your
snarls among jacks and roots,
voluminous as poetry—sleek
as the tallest woods—beautiful
as chest hair parting beech trees.

Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.