Self-portrait from Unnamable Year

by Jonathan Everitt

Self-portrait from Unnamable Year

How often do we not know what
to call a thing until the aftermath?
Once, I melted in someone’s mirror,
heart a hot rock, heavy in my throat.
Presence flipped to absence flapjack-fast.
Sheets thunder-rumpled suddenly
by July’s overblown unstable air.
Of course there was a downpour.
We need reasons to stay alone. To play
the saddest tracks. To have something
we can point to and believe it when we
tell ourselves, “This, too, shall pass.”
What, though, too, shall pass?
Brick heart? Ghost bed? Sad tracks?
Tell me what to call last night’s ashtray
full of foreign filters. Tell me what to call
last night’s ash.

Poet Jonathan Everitt’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Laurel Review, BlazeVox, Scarlet Leaf Review, Small Orange, Impossible Archetype, Ghost City Press, The Bees Are Dead, The Empty Closet, Lake Affect, and the Moving Images poetry anthology, among others. His poem, “Calling Hours,” was the basis for the 2015 short film, Say When. Jonathan has also led a workshop for LGBTQ poets and co-founded the long-running monthly open mic, New Ground Poetry Night, in Rochester, N.Y. He earned his MFA in creative writing from Bennington College. He lives in Rochester with his partner, David Sullivan.

Artist Zoe Stanek was born in Nebraska, raised in Western Colorado, and has found her place among the trees in Oregon’s Pacific Northwest. She’s a creator who takes inspiration from landscapes and everyday magic. Her dream is to become a published author. Zoe sells her work online.