Online Love [ Misha Zakmann ]

Each key tap a pinprick 
my fingertips bleed 
poetry dizzy 
with longing paragraphs
eyebrows imagined
in the serifs your scent
recalled in sentences
your strong fingers lean
as your phrases, eyes
beautifully mascaraed
as your nouns by adjectives

Rivers of electronic 
type carried by currents
down streams of data
wrapped in headers like
so many messages
in bottles. When, oh when
will you come to me
in the flesh? Time is reversed. 

Sunburnt nights sunning 
in the cold blue glow 
of a monitor, launching 
these messages into the tide, 
sweltering in the heat 
of my need. Never before 
has my desire grown
from ephemeral dots, 
no ink, no paper,
words made out of nothing.

From Melitopol in the Pale of Settlement, thence to Paris and Brooklyn trekked Zakmann’s progenitors. Raised in Queens, NY, Misha chased ambitions to Nashville, Louisville, and finally New Albany, Indiana. He received his MFA in poetry from Spalding University’s low residency program. Now retired from teaching writing, he homesteads with his family, performs music with his band, ALL IN, and continues to write poetry, songs, and fiction. He is currently in the recording studio working on his first EP. Misha Zakmann is the pen name of Michael Jackman and is a reclaiming of the family name that was lost at Ellis Island.