LISA ZARAN
Negotiating

When I left the party where I drank too much
wine and ate too many stuffed scones
it was early morning.

The sunlight was a slap across my face
and I felt very humble.  I had a hard time
driving home because I couldn't tell

east from west, only the sun rising
in a bright fireball of wordless gesturing.
Every street had a foreign name.

When I got to the highway I realized
I was in a different part of town.
The body is essentially just essence

and can easily be put in motion  
by a couple shots of whiskey and a smooth
talking musician with black hair

and tattoos.  Driving through the morning
mist, damaged guts and broken heart,
I must have passed forty seven churches.

A god hiding in every one.
image: Fabio Sassi
Lisa Zaran was born in 1969 in Los Angeles, California. She is an American poet, essayist and the author of six collections including The Blondes Lay Content and the sometimes girl, the latter the focus of a year long translation course in Germany, subsequently published in German in 2006 as das manchmal mädchen. Selections from her other books have been translated to Bangla, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, German, Dutch, Persian and Serbian. Her poems have appeared in hundreds of literary journals, magazines, broadsides, anthologies and e-zines including Juked, Ramshackle Review, Apparatus Magazine, Hudson Review, Black Dirt, Other Voices, Kritya, The Dande Review, Soul to Soul, Nomad's Choir Poetry Journal, Not a Muse Anthology, Best of the Web 2010, Literature: an intro to Reading and Writing by Pearson as well as being performed in Glasgow's Radio Theater Group and displayed in SONS, a museum in Kruishoutem, Belgium. Lisa is founder and editor of Contemporary American Voices, an online collection of poetry by American poets. She is also the author of Dear Bob Dylan, a collection of letters to her muse. She lives and writes in Arizona.