by Michelle Matthees


You’re nothing like a metaphor.

I shall compare thee to nothing.

I had an explanation. Of it nothing came.

You came. Maybe mirrors will be found

after black cloths uncover them.

Nothing was revealed. Ears looked empty.

The conversations continued. The salt’s not

snow. The not snow is not snow. Warm water

hits the house, unstained. Alas, Hermann,

perhaps we knew

nothing. We drink vodka of potato, eat

a green cucumber.

Michelle Matthees works can be found at PANK, Prose Poem Project, Proof Magazine, Cerise Press and a lot of other places. She is currently a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellow, and lives in Duluth, MN. She is also currently looking for a publisher for her full-length manuscript “Noctambule.”