Poetry by ryki zuckerman

i kid you not

i hug you not.

after all, i don’t want to kill you

with my exhalations,

even though i am not 

one of those coughers.

even though i seem well enough,

i keep my hugs in my arms

ready for the future time.

“even though you are alone,

you are not alone,” read 

a magazine ad for a bank.

you know, those corporations

are good at stealing

the language of concern,

even though they only

want your money.

they’d be happy for you to 

think they are your friend,

albeit the friend who would be happy

to rob you blind,

even though the blindness

is theirs, the distorted intent

to defraud you of your money,

your hard earned dollars

and cents, your starving

skin and sense of well-being,

your deficit of hugs.

“you’re never alone” could be a good thing,

unless it is the tagline for a horror movie

and, then, you better be careful—

the monster is invisible and always nearby

waiting to hug you.

you go out  

–For Clarita

you think you see 

your friend

until reason reminds you 

she is gone

then, as you walk aisles
for groceries,
every face
is a loved one lost
some gone 4 years, 7 years, 20

just for a nanosecond
the passerby

has had their flesh hijacked 

by the spirit of another

and then back
to their own once more

a conveyor belt
of morphing
and unmorphing returnees

you walk faster
the people around you
check their faces on their smartphones

(From the gone artists, Nixes Mate Books, 2019)

ryki zuckerman is a co-editor of Earth’s Daughters, one of the longest publishing feminist poetry journals in the US. She curates the Literary Cafe at CFI reading series (at the Center for Inquiry) in Amherst, NY.  Her work has been published in print magazines and online journals, and she has a full-length volume, Looking for Bora Bora (2013), and seven chapbooks to her credit. Zuckerman, who has a Bachelors and Masters in Art Education