Working Assumptions
Out by the creek, there’s dead meat.
We fish in a thick trickling dark,
that sound we feel, a look to where
new art’s mounted, and nothing moves.
Don’t search the source.
Focus on evidence of the noise—
these normal irregular geometrical glass bits,
a marble on slab, the particle, not the wave.
A recalibrated sense tuned to a world forced as it is.
Adam Deutsch is the author of a full-length collection, Every Transmission, forthcoming from Fernwood Press in 2023. He has work recently in Poetry International, Thrush, Juked, AMP Magazine, Ping Pong, and Typo, and has a chapbook called Carry On (Elegies). He teaches in the English Department at Grossmont College and is the publisher of Cooper Dillon Books. He lives with his spouse and child in San Diego, CA. His work can also be found at AdamDeutsch.com