Another Terminal Love Poem

Martha Zweig

Dearest alphabetchagammaglob,

o mulish puke & mucus summoning six

bucket brigades a day to tote,

you gutter-glib & tireless

liar listen up: the end humps near, the abyss

whistles & scratches its signal itch;

its anathematic prompts & twists,

enlists our own two wits to woo us, even as we insist

we’ve already spun our likenesses true, which in fact we did do.

Nobody makes self & other entirely up, & never

exactly hot buttered fun to persist—yet spare me not

one more spring illness green at the gills & spoiling

for appetite, any love duet at all among these sour

lilac slumps some slack-&-grifter must’ve left

us both behind among, still hunching our long haul.

Martha Zweig is a poet who lives in Vermont. Her collections include Get Lost, Monkey Lightning, What Kind, Vinegar Bone, A Skirmish of Harks, and Powers. A recipient of the Hopwood and Whiting awards, she worked for ten years in a pajama factory, including a term as ILGWU shop chair, and ten years as an advocate for seniors.
Originally published:
February 14, 2024

Featured

Rachel Cusk

The novelist on the “feminine non-state of non-being”
Merve Emre

Books

Renaissance Women

A new book celebrates—and sells short—Shakespeare’s sisters
Catherine Nicholson

Fady Joudah

The poet on how the war in Gaza changed his work
Aria Aber

You Might Also Like

The Fingerprint Scanner

Ewa Lipska
translated by Anna Stanisz-Lubowiecka



Subscribe

New perspectives, enduring writing. Join a conversation 200 years in the making. Subscribe to our print journal and receive four beautiful issues per year.
Subscribe