Weekly Poem: ‘Journey Through the Past’

By Matthew Zapruder

Listening to Neil Young in California
is like throwing away the old pills

that used to cure something and turning
your face towards the day, i.e. the ocean

filling the window with grey boats
floating in totally bright present aloneness.

For several weeks on my lap top
I had a picture of the space shuttle docking.

Then I replaced it with the ravenous
wooly adelgid covering a blighted eastern hemlock.

One branch looks like a limb
destroyed by an improvised explosive device.

Friend whose father is dying,
let us exchange dreams.

I am strong enough for yours
and you can move

down the long boring beige literal corridor
and replace the batteries in the thermostat,

fingering a diamond hair clip.

Matthew Zapruder is the author of three collections of poetry: “American Linden,” “The Pajamaist” and “Come On All You Ghosts” (Copper Canyon, 2010). He is editor for Wave Books. Read another Weekly Poem by Zapruder here.