With You at One A.M. Under the Swann Street Ginkgos

Rayon go the wind chimes
what do we have here
rum's morse ticking

November gives a huge rat
a purpose in the gutter, touching
that's the knee, oh I get it

I can be now more than me
that's the gist and I think
I think I can rise in the pace car

The spectrograph
prodigious of a caterwaul (we're talking)

Smooth, breasting a creek I have
heard late of your carapace
a good news

not now to say you can
preach the dickens out me clean
all marble needs a rasp

soft on a honey vein
hotsprings often produce travertine
slabbing

but see that's a whole other charter
it will suffice say will it to get down
yes, and be yourself

with my self for a lurch a span a night
yes, agreed and all
but how wide is a leaf
or molten—but then it cools enough
and you can lift it
safe with two bare hands

–Seth Kleinschmidt

Ezzat Abouleish is a Midwesterner from the banks of Wisconsin’s Rock River. After many years spent on and off the air as a radio producer and disc jockey, he is now an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.