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.