the golden oak kitchen cabinet crashed to the floor this morning just as I was simmering a dream of caribou and wolves
nearly clipped the corner off the sleepfog swirling like eggs in a teflon frypan
a mug of tea splattered when it slipped my grip shocked by the shriek of the cabinet’s unhinging
now shards of plates and plans for the day lie strewn on terra cotta tiles some hidden under
the dream-snow, the hot panting of caribou in flight wolves close behind fangs bared
I have no time to dust snowflakes from the corners of my eyes or brush the blood off my teeth before I sweep up scattered flurries of cup chips
and watch caribou slip into the old growth forest of my hippocampus
and sullen wolves slink back into dark folds of the unmade bed
James K. Zimmerman is an award-winning, neurodivergent writer, frequently a Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry appears in Chautauqua, december, Folio, Lumina, Nimrod, Pleiades, Rattle, Reed, Salt, and Vallum, among many other publications, and is also featured on websites such as The Poetry Foundation, American Life in Poetry, and Vallum. He is the author of Little Miracles (Passager Books) and Family Cookout (Comstock Press Books), winner of the Jessie Bryce Niles Prize. He resides at the crepuscular edge between this universe and the one next door, often with one foot in each, and, in his spare time, cultivates roses, orchids, and paradoxical questions. He can be contacted at https://jameskzimmerman.net.
