I admire a poet who drops a title onto the top of a page and then launches into a poem that tantalizes me, eludes me, skipping beyond any explicit connection to the title, as if to say, Chase after me. You’ll be glad you did. Here is one such poem:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  Mouth Harp    You smell like you met rain in a dark alley  and it soured your cologne. Kissed you with  its milk breath and left you allergic. Fourteen  hours of weeping later you meet a man  in your mirror and ask him his name.  It’s not uncommon to question yourself,  but you’re wearing the same shirt you wore  the day you met your wife. Hard not to  recognize the hope tornado forming under  your umbrella. I’ve seen this before.  Someone made you think it’s possible to love  popcorn without risking heart attack again.  Someone buttered you up with promises  like flower petals dripping from their sticky  fingers. I gotta hand it to you. Your ability  to believe in regular people makes you  seem almost superhuman. Almost mythical.  In school you took so many fists to the face  you returned your bruises for a nickel  per pound, your flesh felt priceless. Still  you did not find the value others see in you.  But hope, yes. Love, yes. Believe  in spirits with thread counts like Egyptian linen.  Believe it is possible to touch something  that returns it to you touch for touch.  The street performer on the corner  plays Stravinsky on the harmonica. Maybe  anything is possible.      Zacchary Kluckman    When I Say Ghost, I Don’t Mean Dead,     winner of the Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize

I love how Kluckman opens with the word you. Our narrator might be writing to someone who smells soggy with rain, breath gone funky in the aftermath of drinking milk. But then, four lines in, “you meet a man / in your mirror and ask him his name.” Aha! The narrator is speaking to himself, and because there is a deeply personal essence at work in this poem, I’m going to assume Kluckman is having a conversation with himself.

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The lines that follow flow as smoothly as honesty. And they are not without the kind of surprising whimsy that makes a reader smile with recognition.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  Someone made you think it’s possible to love  popcorn without risking heart attack again.  Someone buttered you up with promises  like flower petals dripping from their sticky  fingers.

Notice what a line break can do:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  Someone made you think it’s possible to love

For the length of one perfect syllable, this is how a poem can surprise. This is what a poem can mean.

By this point—during my first read—I’d forgotten Kluckman’s title. I didn’t care what he was calling this note-to-self poem. I just wanted the ride to continue—even when the poem remembers childhood trauma: “so many fists to the face / you returned your bruises for a nickel / per pound.” Then, a line later—self-surprise—the poet remembers: “But hope, yes. Love, yes.” And the reaffirming power of the verb believe, addressed not just to the self inside the poem but to us reading these words: “Believe it is possible to touch something / that returns it to you touch for touch.”

The poem might have closed here, on the word touch. But Kluckman has a lovely surprise waiting:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  The street performer on the corner  plays Stravinsky on the harmonica. Maybe  anything is possible.

The title’s been up there all along—Mouth Harp—a bit of an itch, there and then gone, forgotten, as the narrative engages us. Almost forgotten. Until this image of Stravinsky by way of mouth harp. And Kluckman’s epiphany: Maybe anything is possible.

About the Author

Zachary Kluckman is an award-winning poet and nationally ranked spoken word artist from New Mexico, currently living in Albuquerque. Oliver de la Paz selected When I Say Ghost, I Don’t Mean Dead for the Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize, 2025. Founder of the Chicharra Poetry Slam Festival and a dedicated mental health advocate, Kluckman is the author of three previous poetry collections.

Note

Avoid the big A. Purchase your books from local bookstores and independent presses. When I Say Ghost, I Don’t Mean Dead is available here ⇒

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