Fast Talk
I heard
a beautiful bird
while I was loading
the trash into
the back of the truck
as I turned
to find the bird
whose song sounded
like nothing I
had ever heard
I realized
it was my
zipper against
the metal
of the wheel well
oh well
will you sing it again
*
Death, or the Chromaticism of Elliott Smith
There’s always the Bitter Tears
of Petra von Kant problem: we want them
to think of us, more than anything
else, but if they do—if they add even a layer
of aragonite to the sandgrain idea
they might care back,
it’s bags packed & off
wordless into the night. An adjudicator
moon stays for a few
daylight hours, just to hear
both sides. You can’t hide
a horse in a closet, the mother
of a little girl quotes her on TikTok
as saying. This is the reason
she gives for why her horse cannot be
the school pet, in the event her class
actually needs to use that
locked-away bucket, their hands
full of things to throw: I wouldn’t be able to
protect him. I don’t want him
to die. Why
lie to a child
when the truth is right there,
all its collisions
& day-drinking insurance
assessors, pretending they remember
what to do. In “Alameda” Elliott sings
Shuffling your deck of trick cards
Over everyone,
Over, like the verb was Lord
or Hang rather than Shuffle—
a random act
you can lie about, like anything.
*
Tom Snarsky is the author of the chapbooks Threshold (Another New Calligraphy) & Complete Sentences (Broken Sleep Books), as well as the full-length collections Light-Up Swan & Reclaimed Water (both from Ornithopter Press). His book A Letter From The Mountain & Other Poems is forthcoming from Animal Heart Press in 2025, and the title poem is available to read on Metatron Press’s GLYPHÖRIA platform. He lives in the mountains of northwestern Virginia with his wife Kristi and their cats. You can find him on Twitter, Instagram, & Bluesky @tomsnarsky.