Danny Unger
“Death Days of August 2021”
for Zach
In Louisiana, the eighth month struck
like a punishment we carved comfort into.
Like a starter pistol, your death propelled me into attention
of the earth’s radiating misery. My southern summer grief
like constant dehydration, despite wetting my mouth when I remembered,
when I could bear it. Death, like an amoeba inhaled during a Gulf water dip,
burrowed into my brain. I streamed scenes of desperate exodus from the Kabul airport
at my kitchen table, while my back caught the meager swirling of a box fan.
I Instagram-stalked dead Gen Z influencers and scrolled through overdose data
as a provocative exercise in closure. All the top hits for can you overdose
on cocaine + Xanax yielded rehab websites, which felt propaganda-like,
withholding any Aha! about your final moments. The pool bar became
my loss support group. Sweating into swimsuits, friends traded recent signs
of you: a bouquet of red balloons floating through the sky, a bumble bee
landing on someone’s shirt genially, without its usual missionary fervor to pollinate.
Only one month without you before ocean and air flung us into Hurricane season.
There was no finality to any of it, just the annual chaos, without you to help parse it.
Danny Unger (she/her) is a queer writer and therapist living in New Orleans. She is currently studying poetry in the MFA program at The University of New Orleans, where she also reads for Bayou Magazine and co-hosts the Gold Room reading series. Her poems have appeared in New Delta Review, HOT PINK Magazine, Antigravity Magazine, Trampoline Poetry and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, "Dear Egg" was published by Tilted House in 2023.
Find her on Instagram @exhaustmonologue
Contributor note: Zach, my dear friend, who I will love and miss forever, passed away on July 31, 2021. He was an enthusiastic social connector and incredibly thoughtful rascal.
Danny Unger also shared a meme for Zach:
