Gerunds only pretend to stillness. But let the caller
say green light and turn her back, even for a second:
the statues will advance on her. You can’t undo
ongoingness. That’s how it is. So, Swimming, I say,
as if swimming were an infinity pool, and Being, I say,
as if existence were immutable, as if inside
the utmost calm there were not something to carmelize,
something subject to weather. For the time being,
I write, telling a friend that a doctor has cut the cancer
from my mother’s throat, that the hardest part is behind us.
For the time being, but I glance over my shoulder,
and in parentheses add, But they’re shapeshifters,
aren’t they, being and time? And sure enough:
fool that I am, I turn my back, and all the statues move.
—Jane Zwart
Jane Zwart’s first book of poems is due out in the fall of 2025. She teaches at Calvin University and has had work in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.