John Zedolik
Nary a Thought
“She’s a little downbeat,
a little too much into
‘What does this poem
say about death?’—
you know what I mean?”
Since I wanted the year-long
position, I replied that
“I didn’t even think about death
until I was twenty-seven,”
which was my previous year
so leaving this one open
for the thought that really had been
rustling about for a decade or even
longer like a stealthy animal
in a crawl space,
but that beast remained silent,
away from administrative ears,
and we left the subject with easy
smiles like the ones
that would spread on faces
after pleasant reads
in the fall across from summer’s
lazy gap when some other
teacher took the hint
and temporary substitution.
Logical Application
“You can have the shotgun
or the dogs,” proclaimed the future
suicide to us pre-teens as we sailed
the portion of creek that strayed
through his land—after my mate
responded to his initial command
to vacate: “You don’t own the water
in the creek”—fluid logic for ten
years or so upon this thinking earth,
of which, a tiny portion belonged
to this man who would, in a generation
lose all hope and relinquish
his rights to property he was now
asserting with the threat of buckshot
and fang to be applied to insolent
interlopers and one’s flowing casuistry,
floating along with inner tube and plastic
tub upon that cool public liquid
they would relinquish upon utterance
of the unpleasant choices, one of which,
upon an interminable diagnosis, in the cold
stream of years, he would visit upon his destined self.
John Zedolik is an adjunct English professor at Chatham University and Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, and has published poems in such journals as Abbey, The Bangalore Review (IND), Commonweal, FreeXpresSion (AUS), Orbis (UK), Paperplates (CAN), Poem, Poetry Salzburg Review (AUT), Third Wednesday, Transom, and in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In 2019, he published his first full-length collection, Salient Points and Sharp Angles (WordTech Editions) followed by When the Spirit Moves Me (Wipf & Stock, 2021 and Mother Mourning (Wipf & Stock, 2023. His iPhone is his primary poetry notebook, and he hopes his use of technology to craft this ancient art remains fruitful.
