Jane Zwart

Prospectus

Before you can read, the tome of If
is at its longest. All things are possible:

lunar homesteading, surgery, water ballet.
Ludicrous things: jackhammer pogo sticks;

trombones parting traffic; basset hounds
hired as stevedores; a lion, solicitous,

weighing a worm. In the beginning the pages
are that broad, before the animals quit dressing

and speaking.  

Did I tell you? I knew someone
who drew an X in her high school yearbook

over the face of each person who died. Now
that’s a prospectus: the tome of When.

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Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, TriQuarterly, HAD and Ploughshares, as well as other journals and magazines.