Mezzanine

Poems

Zoe Hitzig

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780062977465
• eBook ISBN: 9780062977441
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

In her striking collection of poems, Zoë Hitzig investigates how we seek certitude, power, and domination over the natural world and one another. Hitzig brings a scientific rigor to her searing lyricism, as well as a raucous energy and willingness to allow her work to dwell in states of uncertainty and precariousness. The result is an original voice that is incisive and unsparing, but also passionate and tender. Her poems probe the authority of language and logic, questioning the sovereignty of the technological, economic, legal, and political systems that mediate our lives. 

Urgent in its creation of a new way of looking at our social and natural worlds, Mezzanine is an insightful and visceral debut collection from a poet whose work is poised to leave a lasting mark.

I Looked on My Right Hand and Beheld

a hand made out of all that it touched—

fingers of syringes packed with soiled

polyester blankets nails cut from

a plastic bottle cap knuckles

shaped by rinds of other knuckles

and details layered in delicate ash—

ruddy, colorful, clothed. But the left,

flesh and gray, poured like the concrete

surrounding it and sanded at the edges

careful as geometry allows with

dried skin creeping through contours.

Naked hands. Beating knuckles on the ground

wondering will it crack the concrete finally

will it crumble under opposing forces—

material, economy as simple as concrete

is simple, simple to explain but difficult

to understand without explanation.

As plates in our deep crust skid past

one another. One might wonder who

thinks to pour a building of mostly

liquid. Such is the logic of conviction

we are told before the terms are defined.

Dysfunction of episodic memory.

Episode of memory of dysfunction.

Hands that are not our hands.

And so convinced are we of

our own demise we devise it.

The Lotus on Marina Bay Speaks

I am master of the evening lightshow.

Come 8 o’clock, sun gone,

The people belong to me & my

electric arsenal.

They quit their shiny surfaces & sharp objects.

Take off their pointing typing fingers,

abandon their minute-made stances

until tomorrow.

For now it is time to watch lightforms dance

color across glass & marinawater.

Watch them gather, nod to greet each other,

newly deferent.

Here the black-iris bulb blinks from a lightboat,

sashays into a beam of seagreen, soon to be engulfed

by that sandstorm of lightflecks—henna-orange &

desert-clay red.

Sometimes I pretend they understand

my show. That my captivating demonstration

might demonstrate something. To them.

Inside them.

But that is not the case. Not my place. After all

they stuffed the ARTSCIENCEMUSEUM into

my pistil. My petalfingers are padded with

glass skylights.

Yesterday I heard the small man in black

hissing into his handheld device. He wants

to make a deal. Wants to sell the Marina Bay

Sands Hotel.

If the deal goes through they will appoint

a CREATIVEDIRECTOR. What does this deal

mean for me. The towers gleam

behind me.

I am master of the evening lightshow.

Come 8 o’clock, sun gone,

the people belonged to me & my

electric arsenal.

Object at the Department Store Speaks

Listen, take me with you. You have so many things to look at.

I want you ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Publisher’s Note
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
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• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• About the Author
• Permissions
• Copyright
• About the Publisher