{"id":39402,"date":"2026-01-23T13:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=39402"},"modified":"2026-01-23T13:39:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:39:59","slug":"96-a-poem-by-bruce-bond-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/96-a-poem-by-bruce-bond-3\/","title":{"rendered":"96: A Poem by Corey Zeller"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Found in Willow Springs 96<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a finalist in the 2025 Surrealist Prize<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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It Was Like That, and After That, It Was Like That, Only All the Time<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

In the dream I have about your\u00a0brother\u00a0he is eating stones. On his hands and knees, he shoves dirt, rocks, and moss into his mouth while explaining something about history. Something irreplaceably ancient. Something\u00a0widening\u00a0and shaped away.\u00a0Something brimming and tepid and arid and taxied through the\u00a0delphinium-colored\u00a0night.\u00a0Because\u00a0what\u00a0is\u00a0history,\u00a0after\u00a0all, but a dream of invention inventing itself? What is history but keys trapped in locked rooms; a meteor uninterrupted; a boat made\u00a0of\u00a0water;\u00a0a\u00a0one-armed\u00a0forger\u00a0writing\u00a0someone\u00a0else\u2019s\u00a0name\u00a0over someone else\u2019s name? In the dream\u00a0about\u00a0your brother, I carry him down a crumbling cliff. Some\u00a0horizon\u00a0before us like an overbite; God\u2019s crooked tooth. At the bottom of the cliff,\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a lion. And just before\u00a0I think the lion\u00a0is going to maul\u00a0us\u00a0it speaks instead. \u201cSlow down,\u201d the lion says. \u201cSlow down.\u201d And when I\u00a0wake, the sky is the color of a poached elephant\u2014surrounded by wounded elephants. Trumpeting from their worn and disfigured trunks. Just mournful debris. The bitter-sweet rumblings of now. Voicemails from\u00a0your many\u00a0missed appointments. Voicemails from your doctor\u2019s office; your debt collectors; your long, long history of other people\u2019s voices. The chalk-eraser taste of granite; of\u00a0wreckage; of\u00a0rubble. How you try to go\u00a0someplace\u00a0no voice\u00a0can\u00a0find you. Then they\u00a0find\u00a0you. Then they\u00a0find\u00a0you again.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Corey Zeller<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5678,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39403,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39402\/revisions\/39403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}