Joshua Zeitler

Townie

I always said I would leave this place. Run

first chance I got. Chicago. Boston. Seattle.

Anywhere. What anchored me here? I didn’t know

what chicory was until you named it in a poem.

Suddenly it was everywhere I looked. Then,

all at once, nowhere. A thin white sheet

pulled over all. The wolves’ teeth of winter

claiming you. That last night of hospice

I read poetry to your sleeping body, as if

it could cradle whatever was budding in you.

I’ve seen chicory balled tight as a noose knot,

open as a tentative palm testing for rain, but never

have I watched it unfurl. Never witnessed it clench

like an impotent fist shaken at the heavens.

There are miracles, I suppose, yet to be pried

from the ribcage of the world, of this place

in the world. Imperfections hiding in immovable

foundations. I could leave it all. But then I hear

your gravelly voice call my name. I answer.

Joshua Zeitler is a queer, nonbinary writer based in rural Michigan. They are the author of the chapbook Bliss Road (Seven Kitchens Press, 2025), and their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Foglifter, Pithead Chapel, Pacifica Literary Review, and elswhere. www.joshuazeitler.com Instagram. Bluesky.