Three New Poems by Zachariah Claypole White

The Heart—in the Woods Behind my Father’s House

The heart grows in a brother’s fist.
Against the creek named prayer,
this is what happened, and I would not lie
to the muscled dirt of any highway
or home. I have touched the red
door slumped beneath seasons;
tested the handle as the heart
once did, when it sucked gravel
clean in its bloody, boyish mouth.
The thing to understand
about a heart—this one, at least—
it is a collection of walking sticks
left by the basement door,
a line stolen from Wright or Kelly.
Of course I would lie to you;
swallow the waters of boyhood
for a cathedraled sky.
Even now the heart gathers
pinecones and gold fillings
writes its epitaph in foxes
round my brother’s well.

We’re All Writing Lake Poems Now

We don’t talk enough about love,
at least, not the kind I mean here:

how—on the roughest day—
Stephen swam out past the breakers
and yes, though we demanded
him back, I thought, that far from shore
even the ocean must concede his point.

Or, on Governor’s Island—once mistaken
for home—how we grew tongues
feathered and relentless, snuck back that night
to bleed across every door.

And later—on the dock,
how impossible it seemed to jump:
           the surface was unenvied and still,
           the air sweet as Stephen’s breath
           when we pulled him from the waves.

OCD Sonnet #3

enough of poetry—i want only honesty
between us how once for cbt i had to call my mother
a bitch it’s almost funny now—her delight i mean
when finally i did—or the video from undergrad psych-
ology: the man kissing a gas pump handle and please
believe me it was the most beautiful kiss anxiety
is not a poetic word the “i” too self-assured
the “t” all steeple and bell but how tender a field
it makes of our lips that last year my grandmother
mistook every perennial for an epitaph and no priest
or ornithologist could prove her wrong did you know
every flower is its own tragedy that coleus has leaves
like hurricane clouds demands water three times a week
what is a garden if not obsession and kindness.

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Zachariah Claypole White is a Philadelphia-based writer and educator, originally from North Carolina. He holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. His poetry and prose have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, Cleaver Magazine, Bourbon Penn, The Maine Review, and The Hong Kong Review, amongst others. Zachariah has received support from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and his awards include Flying South’s 2021 Best in Category for poetry as well as nominations for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Zachariah teaches at the Community College of Philadelphia and the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College.

OCD Sonnet #3 originally appeared in Cleaver Magazine