by Susan Barry-Schulz
That summer my body a furnace<simmering
like milk< blooming frothy and thick over the scoured
rim of the stainless steel Dutch oven<dripping down
the back of the stove to a place I can’t reach any-
more<my feet a damp root cellar<calves bursting<
my under-clothes soaked<the dog licking my salty
shins<hair oily and dark at the crown<my face slick<
sour<my signature scent<a stagnant puddle ensconced
where the angel shushed me<brown eyes burning
through pages of memoirs of all the poets who bore
the heat far better than I<if only a wind<
if only a cloud<if only a thunder-clap<a flash
of lightening <a torrent enough to fill
the rain barrel<if only September.
Susan Barry-Schulz grew up just outside of Buffalo, New York. She is a licensed physical therapist and a poet living with chronic illness. Her poetry has appeared in SWWIM, Barrelhouse online, Kissing Dynamite, Rogue Agent, New Verse News, Nightingale & Sparrow, Shooter Literary Magazine, The Wild Word, Bending Genres, MORIA Literary Magazine, B O D Y, Gyroscope Review, Harpy Hybrid Review, Wordgathering, West Trestle Review, River Mouth Review, SHIFT, Pine Hills Review, and elsewhere.
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