GAS Featured Writer: Kevin Zepper

 

Kevin Zepper is an instructor at a Minnesota State University Moorhead university. His most recent chapbook, The Shaman Said, was published February 2023. This is his fifth chapbook. He also has a book-length collection, Moonman. Zepper is part of the North Dakota and Minnesota chapters of Poetry Out Loud. When he’s not writing, he snaps photos, makes music, and acts.

Rorschach

 On rare occasions, I roll back my t-shirt sleeve, revealing my only tattoo on my upper left arm.  Old ink in the light of a new summer. When I bought it a lifetime ago, I wanted something permanent, a piece of art, an open red rose and a blue feather. Something…romantic. Someone inevitably asks what is it? What do you think it is, I ask back. An old college buddy believes it’s a bundle of marijuana, leaves dripping with THC. The goth kid with the jet hair and blue lipstick is convinced it’s a silhouette of the devil. A former teacher tells me it’s obviously a poinsettia with a blue spruce swag on one side. Obviously Christmas-y. A child with a temporary tattoo of a smiling sun on his forehead says that my tattoo is the crab nebula That’s what they learned about last week in science class. What remains is an ambiguous, bluish stamp, a hieroglyphic in permanent ink, a prompt to invite comment. Yet, I still see a hint of where the red used to be, recalling the sting of the needle.