Dawn fades in

when I least expect it.

Where are the books that held me once,

my brave invective,

the pictures forming in the darkroom?

     Memory leaves

with her usual lack of meaning,

a darkness with enormous breasts.

The facts open without

a message, as if it were a matter

of style. ( In the place of death,

the nurse folds up the linen.)

     The constellations disappear,

quarks and quasars

lap at the edges. The universe

grows light, the mist in it

burns off, and I don’t know

what emerges. Birdsong.

Something is buried here and it

will rise. Who knows? The angry

catbird wants me gone.

 

&

 

William Zander published poetry in many periodicals (including Beloit Poetry Journal, Crazy Horse, Defined Providence, Light, New Letters, New York Quarterly, Nimrod, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, Rattapallax, South Dakota Review, Yankee, et al.) and one book of poems, Distances, from Solo Press (long out of print). He was a professor of English at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and a longtime contributing editor. He died on April 3, 2019. He will be missed.