Susan Rich
Letter to the End of the Year
Lately, I am capable of small things.
Peeling an orange.
Drawing a bath.
Throwing the cat’s tinsel ball.
Believe me, this is not unhappiness.
Only one question –
why this layering on of abeyance?
Though it is winter inside of me –
there is also spring and fall.
Yellow tulips in need of planting
root in a basket by the door.
Tonight, mortality seems cloistered in a pinecone
close-windowed, remote.
What was the peak moment
of your happiness?
And how did you know?
For weeks, it’s been oatmeal,
the Internet, an Irish shawl.
I realize, I am growing older
and stranger.
Please, don’t misunderstand.
I am still impatient
still waiting for symbiant and swoon
the litter of blue-gold –
a one-time constellation:
Now, before you go.
Page(s) 16-17
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The