Words:
- Orchid
- Escape
- Vulture
- Pancakes
- Hackles
- Impossible
Breakfast
I came here for pancakes and raspberry jam,
black pudding with bran flakes, granola on spam,
but my ill-fated plan takes a tumble… and BAM!
A outcroppy landscape rears up. Here I am
surrounded by grackles of nibby-sharp shape.
I puff up my hackles. I fluff up my nape.
A thundercloud crackles. Weird vortices gape.
I rattle my shackles and plot my escape…
but daylight turns midnight. The grackles turn vulture,
alight on the tip of a crackling sepulcher,
critique my cuisine with their cackling culture:
No orange juice, orchids, or grape nuts! They toss the bowl
into a wasteland that’s gaping, uncrossable.
These condors turn conqueror. Escape is impossible.
Mild-mannered philosophy professor by day, poet by night,
Ray Briggs teaches at Stanford University, where they also host the syndicated radio show Philosophy Talk. They are the author of the poetry collections Common Sexual Fantasies, Ruined (Cordite Press, 2016) and Free Logic (University of Queensland Press, 2013), as well as the co-author of the zine Modern American Gods, Volumes One and Two (2018, with Anna Zusman) philosophy monograph What Even Is Gender (Routledge, 2023, with B. R. George).
Anna Zusman immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union when she was twelve. She currently teaches drawing and illustration at Southern Arkansas University. In her artwork she questions stereotypes and conventions. Anna regularly participates in zine festivals and exhibits her art around the US. She is a creator of many art books and zines including Mermaid Heritage (2014), Men from Dating Sites: Volume 2 (2019) and Modern American Gods Volumes I and II (with Ray Briggs, 2018).
http://www.annazusman.com/
