by The Rutgers Review Poetry Collective

 

Tethered to the Earth
Zachary Kauz

If only my portrait drawn in sand would wash away entirely

Dispersed amongst grains of equal composition
Matched in what they lack
Shoved by waters that force forward
Carried by the breeze’s inconsiderate grip
Released impartially without remorse

Still remains an image of me

Its features scattered around shoulders
Of a body tethered to the earth
Expressions held beneath the surface
Made of each granule
That was once perfectly arranged

A portrait now travels

Away from its center
Across its earthly canvas
Detached from shape and form
Taken by the wind
Tied to its beginning

 

Push
Faith Franzonia

To set a 6 am alarm,
and get up on the first ring.
To laugh, unconstrained
the day after the worst day of your life.
To paint your nails yellow
when your head is blue.

To fight against everything which is telling you not to fight.

To stay.

To suffer.

 

What We All Bleed
Zachary Kauz

And through us runs the same routes of blood
Bold enough to swim to surface
Betraying the once private expression
The blush you don’t remember painting on
Disrupting in its honesty
Basking in its own brutality
Staining the walls it sought to stream through
The heirloom bloom displaced from beauty
Made to understand disease and defect
I clutched rainwater with my forearm
To intercept a cycle of growth
To learn from it
To humor my selfish veins
Responsible for their own health
The haemoglobin I am nothing without
Everything within
A scab presents itself
To show what I am made of
Mistakes and recovery