We Take Home Chunks of Time

by Kelsey Bryan-Zwick


we take home chunks of time
crystal sandy from the beach we've just learned of
and stones smoothed from centuries
of wind and waves

we place these stones one by one in
our own garden or the grounds of the apartment
building we happen to live in

have turned its discarded space into a garden
clipping by clipping, seed by seed
stone by carefully gathered stone
wearing a path from ocean to home

and on a day like today
where the clouds roll in just as it is getting hot
where we tidepool, hold hermit crabs
espy fish, rock crabs, anemone and

wave after crashing wave your smile
I love to see you smile and the seagulls
go caw-caw!


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Kelsey Bryan-Zwick (she/they) is a queer, disabled, bilingual, poet and a columnist for Los Angeles Poet Society. Disabled with scoliosis at a young age, their poems often focus on trauma, shedding light on this isolating experience. They are a Lead Collaborating Fellow of The Poetry Lab and founded the micro-press BindYourOwnBooks. Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net nominated, Kelsey’s forthcoming microchapbook, Bone Water (Blanket Sea Press, September 2021) and their first full-length poetry collection, Here Go the Knives (Moon Tide Press, January 2022), focus on their decades surviving with scoliosis. On the gram @theexquisitepoet and online at www.kelseybryanzwick.wixsite.com/poetry.