Dear Mr. Godfrey Logan,

Here for your consideration are "Thoughts", "id", and "an Inclusive." I introduce myself as Courtney Zelinsky, a sixteen year old of Pittsburgh. My pieces tend to start figuratively skinny, then widen, and are usually rather people-focused, even if not immediately so. People always spur my work.

Please enjoy! And thanks for your time.

Thoughts

Off of the top of my head
I can talk only of bubbles
Whose final destination is
Precisely here,
embarking from
A scummy little treasure chest within,
The journey is never quick, never painless.
but your angel,
Cerebrospinal Fluid
Among other angels, demons alike
nonetheless sees to their sanctity
And
Grants
Permission to
Pop!
And
They are reborn as things
Like shortcake and napalm...
As fast as the lid opens, closes
on lucidity.



id

i am one of those people
who finds symbolism in everything--
in writing this, my green pen ran out
and so the first line
disconcerts me
"those people"
different
as if it were bad.
to be one of
them.

it's better than this moment:
sitting
eating toast
and butter
lots
of butter
like anyone else
"those people"

sitting in the kitchen
looking out the window
(it's night)
and seeing
an uncertain arm,
hand
but
never a face.



an Inclusive

he tore the urban screens
and 60-watt artifices
and sung Kumbaya
in a way I'd never heard it
sung

mysterious!
how can air dance like that
and mean a trainwreck in
the attic upstairs--

cogs and cobwebs rendezvous
with swirling torrents,
slopping ink on
files we never got to,
suddenly now
those two little blackbirds made sense.

Because
i was wary of all
these foreigners

i wandered close to the willow pond:
only half of me jumped,
the other half died and fell up the bleachers
of an aristocracy,
helping myself to powdered wig and gavel
i could play croquet,
luxury has it that we bore, tsk

and they dunked me back in the scum
of a pond where I belong.

where i meet the green mist's chimes.
the algae control the wind's muted whistles,
residents there tell me
they always felt the same charming way
in spite of
the rest

doesn't matter

if you find us
you'll know

Courtney Zelinsky