Zombie Life

Think of me as an unshriven ghost at your banquet, a scuttling remnant of hunger following you around the dining room table, broadcasting like an ice cream truck playing a jingle around the block: Let me tell you what my mother my father did—show you my childhood scars tell you how I cared for my husband my wife, before I was abandoned, all hurt all abuse melting into one blind sound seeking any ear but its own.

Joseph Hardy is one of a handful of writers that live in Nashville, Tennessee, that does not play a musical instrument; although a friend once asked him to bring his harmonica on a camping trip so they could throw it in the fire. His wife says he cannot leave a room without finding out something about everyone in it, and telling her their stories later. His work has been published in: Appalachian Review, Cold Mountain Review, Inlandia, Poet Lore, and Poetry City among others. He is the author of a book of poetry, “The Only Light Coming In”.