Explorer I think of the man with bits of ice in his scruff, below full, chapped lips, the expansiveness of Pradollano behind and beyond him, laid out in snow-covered ridges under sun and the blue. I am dazzled by the ways bodies hold on and terrified by the ways they perish. Science gets sharper, more fine-tuned— whetting its blade to plumb inner highways for answers and disorder. This luscious lot of me, drunk and eating in the sun, I can’t go as far as the tilth of Whitman. I touch the screen and think of the warmth of my love handles. I think of the man whose voice is warm in my ear, who runs his finger like ice in the crease of my back.
Jeffery Berg's (he/they) poems have appeared in various journals such as Pine Hills Review and most recently, Same Faces Collective. Jeffery lives between Jersey City and Provincetown and reviews films for Film-Forward. His debut poetry collection, Re-Animator, is forthcoming from Indolent Books in 2026.
