Uncharted Territory

Uncharted Territory
Uncharted Territory

found myself

on the floor last night

didn’t think

much of it, just

got back in bed and fell

back asleep

 

life can be funny that way

 

didn’t notice

the blood or the pain

until morning

 

funny that way

 

like noticing a great idea

hasn’t occurred to you yet

 

or a friend left last year

for Tierra del Fuego

without a blog or

a text or like Michael

Rockefeller disappearing

in New Guinea in 1961

 

they say he died there but

how would I know?

 

maybe he drowned or

they ate him or maybe

he’ll show up next year

at the Oscars or Burning

Man or the White House

or something

 

life can be funny that way

 

or like when you find out

your grandfather was

a bastard – no, not that way –

a nice guy, but just that

his parents weren’t really

his parents or something

and all of a sudden things

 

fall into place like why

he was always trying

to make up for something

and never seemed

to get there

 

funny that way

 

so now

I guess the docs will want

to wire me up and stick me

prod me and take a bunch

of readings and blood

to make sure I’m okay

 

or out of morbid curiosity

or so they can play

with their cool toys

 

or just to cover their asses

 

and when they’re done

they still won’t be able

to tell me how or why

I came to land

face first on the floor

in the first place

 

life can be funny that way

sure can be funny that way

 

 

James K. Zimmerman is an award-winning poet and Pushcart Prize nominee. His work appears in The Evansville Review, Confrontation, The Worcester Review, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, The Bellingham Review, Vallum, Kestrel, The Cape Rock, Oberon, and The MacGuffin, among others. He is the author of “Little Miracles” (Passager Books, 2015) and “Family Cookout” (Comstock, 2016), the winner of the Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Award from The Comstock Review. He can be contacted through his website.