Slow Melt

Zebulon Huset

Some mornings we arch
with no keystone.

The day’s cockles
have gone to the birds—
last week’s flax seed.

Caught in the entropy of snowmen
our forts had to melt.

They televised the frigid revolt—
an attrition of ratings
wore down network support
and it wasn’t renewed
for a full second season.

The partisans started a webcomic
and no one was beheaded.

Winter flowers bow to the frost.

Every revolution returns us here.

The Old Man of the Lake
is sometimes
just called Bob.

The unseen narrator
has passed out
and now the lost pigeons
can’t find their spiked roosts.

So, someone else start the séance.
I must talk to Mel Blanc about my childhood.
Not, all of it—only
the words, the actions
the point. You know—
all that terrestrial slapstick.

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Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer living in San Diego. His writing has recently appeared in The Southern Review, Roanoke Review, Louisville Review, Fence, Rosebud, Meridian, North American Review, Cortland Review, Portland Review, Texas Review and Fjords Review among others. He publishes a writing prompt blog Notebooking Daily with its print companion Notebooking Periodically and is the editor of the fledgling journal Coastal Shelf.