You Won’t Feel a Thing 

    All that time I sat on the porch swinging.

    Such a sad cloud—fuzzy, thunderous,

    dense. Who cares about logic,

    perspective? He said he couldn’t

    choose. The road stayed in place, making

    its two promises. First, it was summer, but then

    the snow fell like flowers. Like pieces

    of a cloud, tired of holding its breath.

    You won’t feel a thing.

    All that time.

    I sat on the porch swinging.

    Such a sad cloud—fuzzy, thunderous.

    Who cares about perspective? The road

    stayed in place, making its two promises.

    He couldn’t choose.

    The snow fell like flowers, like pieces

    of a cloud, tired of holding its breath. He said     

    you won’t feel a thing.

    First, it was summer, thunderous.

    But then the snow fell dense

    like flowers. I sat on the porch—fuzzy.

    Like pieces of a cloud, tired of holding its breath.
 

    ______________________________________________________

When the Dead Speak to Me, It’s Body Language 

    At the bedroom door, before I leave, Mother’s

    crooked hinge finger pokes out and rips

    my shorts. Alone in the deserted house (is he 

    in the garage?), she has puzzled. She’s new

    at this, thinks ghostly dreams passé, may be

    attributed to trout or heavy cream. Instead, 

    she’ll lay on hands, like the old world,

    soothe foreheads, fumble that button thing

    with the thread. Where her forehead would be 

    wrinkles. She’s even thinner now. Do they

    cover mirrors so the dead can’t look through

    themselves? With her passage is a kind of sweeping,  

    but she can’t turn a faucet or squeeze soap.

    The stove remains cold whatever she does. Catch

    me. How to interfere. How to remind. Remember. 
  

   __________________________________________________________

Susan Grimm is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. Her poems have appeared in West    Branch, Poetry East, Rattapallax, The Journal, and other publications. In 1996, she was  awarded an Individual Artists Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. Her chapbook,  Almost Home, was published by the Cleveland State University Poetry Center in 1997. In 1999, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year by the Ohio Poetry Day Association. Her book of poems, Lake Erie Blue, was published by BkMk Press in 2004. She edited Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems which was published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center in 2006.

    __________________________________________________________

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