The Return by Jeffrey Zable

by Alaskan artist Lisa Moore who created this quilt

THE RETURN

First appeared in Ditch, 2014

We sit on the roof of twilight

remembering glaciers

that melted in our hands,

and insidious batons

that waved over our heads,

turning to dust

in the moon’s red eye.

We could run with lobsters

through sands of delirium

on marigold beaches,

or jostle with ladders

whose broken tongues

lick yesterday’s salt.

We could burn with fragrance

in a numbing aphasia

at the bottom of the sea

and finally return home

to a city of avalanches

and ten thousand fingers

unraveling our names.

JEFFREY ZABLE is a teacher and conga drummer who plays Afro Cuban Folkloric

music for dance classes and Rumbas around the San Francisco Bay Area. His poetry,

fiction, and non-fiction have appeared in hundreds of literary magazines and anthologies.

Recent writing in Tigershark, Ink In Thirds, Alba, Corvus, Cacti Fur, Uppagus,

Defuncted, Spelk, The Mark, Former Cactus, The Bitchin’ Kitch, and many others.

In 2017 he was nominated for both The Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize.

#jeffreyzable