Baudelaire

by John Ziegler

With my dollars spread across a quilt under the open window,
I remember your celebration: I collapsed; I called out:
Return to the vague postal outpost,
From which is brought no peace, aside
From the occasional hand-cuffed briefcase.

Depending on how many vile mortals
You can fit in a chiffarobe without mercy,
How many regrets fill your celebratory and utilitarian cellar,
My dollars will serve me no more. When streets are cold, the

Crease doubles. Another defeated foreign pincher,
Falling from the balcony of the counting house, wrapped in peppery robes.
I surge ever southward toward old water
And miles of brackish prospects.

The humidity entombs our most grand balustrade,
And soon come a long Oriental language express,
Intending, my heartthrob, intending to overlay the inkiness until
I reach the swamp.

John Ziegler graduated from Prescott College in 2008. He studied writing, literature, and natural history. He was born and raised in Louisiana and he now lives in New York.

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