Nothing lasts. In the desert, under a mountain,
bones crushed to smaller versions of themselves,
condensed again to the thinnest line, a leaf
from a book finished and forgotten. All words
eventually lose meaning, zombie languages
unintelligible, toothless civilizations, incoherent
moaning in our ears. No one remembers except me
and when I die, those who remember me
will eventually die. We will be the rocks in the ground,
the dust cushioning those rocks, the dirt
holding the prints of all the passing animals.
—Andrew Kozma’s poems have appeared in Blackbird, Redactions, and Best American Poetry 2015. His book of poems, City of Regret (Zone 3 Press, 2007), won the Zone 3 First Book Award. He lives and writes and teaches in Houston, Texas, probably in that order.