Z.D. Harrod

Wellness Check

By the time I call, Donny is already at it:
flicking bottle-caps into a brick’s hole
as the landline rings, his head already buzzed
with something of the hurt of this place.
Tapping his finger against the receiver
like a syringe. He mentions the scabs
from kneeling on hard pine—the lump
where his father’s knuckle used to rap
between his eyes during a service. The blank
of chipped drywall. The twelve gauge
he stole from me, tendered
to Mountain Man’s Pawn off 15th for a fix.
He says he’s well.
I know Donny.
That to live here is to hang, most nights,
above the frantic tumult of 49 South
dangling his legs, mapping his veins with a needle
until the cars became fireflies whose light he’ll smudge
with a thumb. What love I’ve measured
out, what use. Already in his voice,
the grumble of engines. The hiss of spoon
over flame as he becomes well.

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Z.D. Harrod's poetry appears in Southwest Review, Nashville Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. He teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at Haas Hall Academy in Rogers, Arkansas.