AFTERLIFE REGISTRATION          

by Martha Zweig

Tunnel-peristalsis squishes you oof out into bright white
shocking light. Wingy things slap your butt & croon, crowd ‘round to write
in your yearsbook sentiments deranging from the tried-&-trite
to truish, chapter infinity. Planets glide into trine--
Why? Whose? That one rocks like mama earth. Titanic bursts of brine
& tears slosh at an orchestra tilting hymns along the brink
of human discipline. Pied-eyed in a Manley-Hopkins blink,
you execute documents: psychedelict signature blank
overfilling-in, ink wallowing up the checked box, thick black.

Martha Zweig’s four full-length poetry collections include GET LOST, DHP Oregon; MONKEY LIGHTNING, Tupelo, and WHAT KIND and VINEGAR BONE, both from Wesleyan University Press. A fifth is now making the rounds. Her chapbooks are POWERS, Stinehour Press, Vermont Council on the Arts, and A SKIRMISH OF HARKS, Jacar e-book. Zweig’s poems appear widely; her recognitions include Hopwood Awards, a Whiting Award, Pushcart and Best-of-the-Net nominations, and a Warren Wilson MFA. She lives in Vermont where she worked ten years as an advocate for seniors, after ten years handling garments in a pajama factory where she served a term as ILGWU shop chair.