Things That Say Your Name by Zach Bartles

The river running along the fence, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting.

Things That Say Your Name

by Zach Bartles

The shrike perched on a barbed wire fence. The wainscot moth it impaled on a barb, its wings hinging open-close, open-close. The dust sporing from its wings. The daylight sieved through the dust. The river running along the fence, sometimes whispering, sometimes shouting. The rocks in the river slurring the
water this way and that way. The water that laps at the banks. The whitetail deer lapping at the water. The breaths of the deer pluming in the cold, through which the light also passes. The breath smoking from my mouth into which I walk and walk and walk. Everything. Everything does.

First published in Poetry Ireland Review (2025)