F Daniel Rzicznek
Inspector
The entryway is an entryway,
the foyer a foyer, the landing
a landing and the mirrors removable.
I see scraps of the self in it all:
these lists I make and remake,
the muddy footprints under stars
where rain arrives and I check
after it in the powerless house.
An infestation perforates a windowsill
and the pear tree twenty feet away
goes on and on being a pear tree.
I know the neighbor smokes cigars
and his war goes with him like
a faithful dog despite the terrain.
Little of the world understands rhythm
but it performs and performs anyway.
I have no old friends and the songs
in my head require a mindlessness,
a going on emotion alone, like
the distractible couple walking in
for the first time, not recognizing it as one
of thousands over lifetimes, threshold
met and met and met, over-fulfilled.
Your Name
The April snow filling in the bare garden
writes the same syllable
on hundreds of white magnolia petals.
Take a good long look.
F. Daniel Rzicznek’s newest collection of poetry is Settlers (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press). His recent work appears in Denver Quarterly, American Literary Review, and Barrow Street. He teaches at Bowling Green State University.