Two Poems

Zan de Parry

If Feathers Were CigarettesThis week I reunited with a friendWe ordered the same foodBread with a simple sauceShe brought me metal pansiesShe said there’s a story in her family of a duckLike all ducks this duck wore waterBut didn’t like the wetnessBut burned her feathersRather than omitting the riverThe conversation was difficult to holdAnd somehow very expensiveI see myself as this duck I saidBarn DoorYou can buy pants with pocketsOn the pants. I use these for tripsTo pocket-sized places, like my historic homelandI’ve long realized that keeping my phone in my pocketIs cost-effective, like living in a barnCrack open your phone and seeTwo people wearing glasses having sexI can’t wait to take you home and rob youBreak your chaste and taste it with masaTo get a piece of your galoreShow up out of the woods at like 1000 AMCook you a boiling plate within seven minutesAdd 25 dollars to a new savings accountUntil I can afford you an old, beautiful bridge

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Headshot of Zan de Parry

Zan de Parry wrote Cold Dogs (The Song Cave) and lives in Michigan.

Cover of Cold Dogs by Zan de Parry

The poems in Zan de Parry’s debut collection, Cold Dogs, teeter between deadpan humor and heartbreak, producing a new homegrown surrealism. Coupled with the poet's deceptively simple line drawings, these questioning and conversational poems operate on the sidelines of reason, dictated by human instinct. "He gently folded my head into my chest / And my face into my groin / Friend, let me show you an informal way / to achieve dreams." For readers familiar with the poems of Richard Brautigan and James Tate, Parry similarly travels in the bizarre, absurd, and existential, populating his poems with brilliant moments of heartfelt reverie and amusement. The matter-of-factness of the world perceived in Cold Dogs introduces a compelling and exciting sensibility to contemporary poetry.

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