Adam Gunther, Winter 2017

Something Just Above Nothing
Adam Gunther

There are two birds in the park,
I couldn’t tell you what kind,
so deliberately they sway back and forth on the branches
and they cackle and sing to one another, like a pair of old friends

And I,
I am left wondering:
what makes those birds first sing out?
I hope it is nothing.

Or rather,
something just above nothing.

Maybe it is the way the wind is hitting their beaks
just right.
Maybe it is the way the twig they found fits perfectly
into their nest.
Maybe it is the way the winter sped by:
inaudible and tepid.

And fittingly,
images of my oldest friend and I pass by and wave.
We were sitting out by the old, decrepit community pool
year after year.

And while all of this went on
the hands of time clicked forward, behind the scenes,
completely undetectable to our young eyes.

But here still are my oldest friend and I,
growing,
like two weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk
outside his front stoop.
Watching the ants mull around their hills,
while the ants watch us toss an under-inflated basketball at a hoop
with a large plastic chunk of the backboard long-since broken off,
until his mother would pull in the driveway after a long day of work
and she’d call us inside.

Here now are my oldest friend and I,
still today,
cackling like crows,
at something just above nothing.

Adam Gunther is a 20-year-old political science major with a passion for creative writing. He hails from Bay City, Michigan, and now lives in the heart of Chicago. Adam’s writing explores the beauty within the everyday. He pens “simple” stories and anecdotes that speak to broader themes of struggle, meaning, fairness, and especially love. His work has been published in Sun and Sandstone Magazine and Dark Run Review.