Zachary Schomburg
[I'M ON A NEW HIGHWAY]
I’m on a new highway.
It goes forever if I want.
Then I pull off of it.
I order the first thing on the menu.
Is it Christmas?
I think that in another language.
But which one?
I’m not ready.
So, I just order the box.
I’ll just have the box.
I say it like boxxxx.
It’s a good thing I had five dimes.
Is it Christmas?
What? says the woman.
Is it Christmas?
It feels like I’m in an on microwave.
It feels like day two of endless war.
ZACHARY SCHOMBURG is the author of a novel, Mammother (Featherproof Books) and four books of poems published by Black Ocean. He is the editor and publisher of the independent poetry press Octopus Books, and lives in Portland, Oregon.
ISSUE FOUR features fiction by David Crouse, Susan Daitch, JoAnna Novak, and Ian Stansel; literary criticism by Rick Moody; film writing by J.M. Tyree; creative nonfiction by Michael Levan and Marco Wilkinson; film writing by J.M. Tyree; a David Remnick interview with John Ashbery; poetry by Natalie Eilbert, Kathy Fagan, Sarah Gridley, Philip Metres, Danielle Pafunda, Daniel Poppick, Zachary Schomburg, Sandra Simonds, Analicia Sotelo, and Catherine Wagner; and translations of Jorge Luis Borges and Ye Hui.