Falling in Love with the Death Thought

Zachary Schomburg

First published in Salt Hill 28 (2011).

Falling in love with the death thought is a way of never really dying. You let an idea hold you in its real arms. This is how you love: you try over and over again to throw a red balloon across the river from a tree. That is the only thing you can do. You are likely millions of years old, but you look 34. Things get faker or more real when you touch them.

Zachary Schomburg is the author of The Book of Joshua (Black Ocean, 2014). He coedits Octopus Books and lives in Portland, Oregon.