PUNK POETRY: The Deal by Thomas Zimmerman

This evening’s dogwalk: springlike light and pubic

grass. I moped all day in brain fog. Now 

I feel my rebel hormones–wounded band 

of siblings–coming to. This May, I’m turning

sixty-four. An earworm Beatles tune’s

tamped down by gauzy rags of dream: six-fingered

hands that cut a Tarot deck. I love 

the pictures, never get the meaning. That’s

the deal, my darker angel tells me. Sorrow, 

loss, regret, departure; friendship, drunken

dancing, rowing on the moonlit river: 

all mixed willy-nilly. Backyard spruces

sway in soft breeze, three times taller than 

they were twelve years ago. They too will die

--Thomas Zimmerman