Untitled Prose Poem by Mande Zecca

I stood lost, playing host to a crowd’s dual dispersions. Violet duets in evening’s bombed-out air. O, nation! In your saltwhite robes. What good is my gull-winged capital when, thick with ticksex, the doves disperse? We asked for asphodel, got acres pitted with ash. Rangy pasturage. Dross. Then there’s the grain that nets the heart. That the dirt is holy. That it grits the skin. We are the grass the wind shakes through.


Mande will read her work at WORMS on January 24.