Michael Zbigley

RATTLER

A part of the desert is moving towards you.
A part of the desert is looping up and uncoiling,
the desert is raising itself up.
 
You didn’t know you had this fear inside you.
You didn’t know you could so vividly imagine
the casual parting of flesh, the incision,
 
the release. While the landscape was unfolding
in the car window you were singing,
your tongue sliding along the roof
 
of your mouth, you were thinking
of the fat muscle probing, of creation.
Of music. You thought about the night
 
your daughter was probably conceived,
how flesh had never seemed so full,
or maybe the memory is confused,
 
maybe that night came later, or
hasn’t happened yet, some promise
of a turgid future, flashing forward,
 
driving, a part of everything moving
too fast to think about, the music
quickened into a low incantation, a dry rattle.




Michael Zbigley is an MFA candidate at the University of Montana and has previously published in Red River Review and Slow Trains, with work forthcoming in Gin Bender.