Rebecca Zweig

only speaking with worn codes I

divine hospitality from hostage my landlord

exposed by which I mean teased

into light watching me from behind the curtains I

keep open through the night watching my neighbor’s

television through the night my neighbor watching the bachelor

into the dawn that holds my rose attentions now

wilting my landlord hot in the purple

hydrangeas refusing the flattened

new light assigned by encroaching

developments flattening the crocuses the hostas my landlord

beyond the curtain digging them up in sad music

the music sings only the lonely my landlord the

codes worn most efficiently in music

Modern Country

Johnny sends a video

of a fish bellied up

its expression torn loose in the lake

where we swim &

swim each night

of summer I touch the porcelain

white lesion on my back we

don’t know what causes the tissue to break

down they said might

be genetics

you Ashkenazis have so

many problems returning

from the water Graham applies the seven

hundred dollar

topical steroid

like a pro apologizes

for the pain when I double

over with its

burning Rhinestone

Cowboy in every bar

since Glen Campbell died last

week one last lucid thought of modern

country it’s just

shit EDM

about drinking beer he said

& trap beats thrown thoughtless

at some excess myth in Yakima

Rachael turns up

Eric Church to drown

out the scabland collapse

as it dissolves

into the brassy angular light of

wildfire

we still swim the night

after Johnny’s video can’t

take the heat then rain then again the heat

& besides we’ve already decided we’re

not having kids

we swim too close

to the Gates’ estate where the guards

in ill-fit khaki barely

concealing their carry

run to us

to protect the deep

thick of nothing where

my admiration betrays me as smoke

descends Carrie Underwood says backroad backroad again escaping

enclosure Kathy points

to me in streetlight “that

thing on your back

it’s so white it almost looks

expensive” ticking our wet

on the cement beach

Rebecca Zweig is a writer, reporter and filmmaker based in Mexico City.