Fellow Travelers
These sonnets, footnotes to the memoirs we
construct in dreams, sustain us on the path,
however brambled, stony, wind-lashed, bee-
loud, wild-flowered it might be. We do the math:
five beats, ten syllables, for fourteen lines.
It’s walking, breathing, chanting, tapping beats
on fingers or inside the mind, cool pines
or sun-struck eagles overhead, the bleats
of sheep, the cricket-chirp for counterpoint.
The journey takes some unexpected turns.
The branches bend, reveal a roadhouse joint:
we have a beer, the shot of whiskey burns,
we have another. Stories morph and blend,
but this is just one chapter, not the end.
Bio
Thomas Zimmerman (he/him) teaches English, directs the Writing Center, and edits The Big Windows Review at Washtenaw Community College, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. His poems have appeared recently in Live Nude Poems, Pink Plastic House, and Zero Readers.
Tom’s website: https:/
Twitter: @bwr_tom