The middle part is where mine starts, the mush
and indeterminacy, buzz that won’t
wear off: the back deck shaded, cooler full.
The edge is what I Iove, but cuts come easy,
pretty things get broken, mythic girlfriends,
statues—missing arms or faces, sometimes
heads—that line the atrium. The action
rises, falls, twin helixes instead
of arc. Once someone told me the beginning.
Pressed, I lack the words to write the
Thomas Zimmerman (he/him) teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review https://thebigwindowsreview.com/ at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His poems have appeared recently in The Beatnik Cowboy, M58, and the anthology Extreme Sonnets. Tom's website: https://thomaszimmerman.wordpress.com/