Photo by Dave Bledsoe of FreeVerse Photography
M E D I A T I O N S O N P E R S P E C T I V E
by Matthew Zingg
Because the sky was wax paper the planes were
flies stuck in their holding patterns.
From a few thousand feet downtown must seem
like something a man
could carve into a walnut shell.
It was just one of those days.
On the rooftop again a couple of dumb Lowells
in our hungover pajamas wagging two dollar
egg salad sandwiches
above our heads like late minute commandments.
You said: the city was wearing its clearest uniform.
I said: the brow of the park looked
scabrous and fresh
in its Sunday best, the air a shade
of yellow easiest to forget.
It was a game we played—to see how far the other
could take all this acreage.
A balloon lifts up a couple blocks away
and it means an explosion, a portent
or it means a slow eye. In other words
there is nowhere else to go up here, stretched
thin as we are
across this autumn afternoon.
Matthew Zingg‘s work can be found in The Paris-American, The Awl, Blackbird, Cider Press Review, HTML Giant, The Madison Review, Birdfeast, The Rumpus, Everyday Genius, and Muzzle, among others. He lives in Baltimore where he hosts the Federal Dust Reading Series.