Zach Eddy

Aluminum Door

With the scraping tool in the back

of my mouth she asks, Do you have 

any poems you’re working on right now

She retracts the tool. I tell her I’m thinking about how God 

named Eve “mother,” but neither she nor Adam knew what 

that word meant. Ah, yes. Eve. The split of the twin flame. 

You know, they made whole churches just for Mary. 

I hum, sort of. She cleans, scrapes, and scrapes me clean. 

The sun is male and water is female. All the rain 

and water, that’s women. We’re seeing that coming 

back, like it should. Men just have certain jobs.

I gag on the suction tool, and she wipes the spit

from my chin. She tells me my gum health has improved

since last year. I give her a thumbs-up she can’t see. 

In my skull, my teeth shine and ache. 

Good for biting. Good for eating fruit.


Aluminum Bike

With the scraping tool in the back

of my mouth she asks, Do you have 

any poems you’re working on right now

Aluminum Apple

With the scraping tool in the back

of my mouth she asks, Do you have 

any poems you’re working on right now?

Zach Eddy is a former aluminum worker. His writing has appeared in Northwest Review, High Desert Journal, Terrain.org, The Comet Magazine, Poetry Northwest, The Confluence, Shrub-Steppe, and elsewhere. His poem "Fish Eyes" was awarded the 2016 Wenatchee Valley College Earth Day Poetry Prize. He currently teaches English composition and creative writing at Wenatchee Valley College and teaches historical fiction workshops for the Wenatchee Valley Museum & Cultural Center

Artwork: “Swimmer” by Daniel Lurie

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