Susan Tepper
(USA)
The Vase
In the beginning the room called out
asking for much and many—
I was too skinned to provide
the least dusting, a vacuum sweep
wiping tree scum from window wells
It can corner you: filth
and the way his breathing moved
hands up your legs
everything draped 1 mil plastic sheets
was not the satin you pretended,
or even percale
Finally a vase of ordinary blooms
aged brown along their edges
dug a trench to your room
Sage
Should I change these walls
To sage to experience
The smell when winter
Freezes every flower scent
Deer shit and the bird droppings
I could have sage up my nose
All day into the waning light
Sage might save me from
Impending disaster I feel
Like a ship being swallowed
By a wave
Sage to refresh my aura
Suggested some psychic but
I am way past that—
Shedding Water
Out the west window the mountain
slopes covered in rusted leaves tender
crackling— there for all who listen:
deer tracks, the wolves and small creatures
suckling roots unending rivulets,
the shedding water cutting bloodlines to
yards and wasted gardens:
I am a creature of before and after
the flooding of ground each spring.
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Susan Tepper grew up on Long Island where two of her recent books take place. What May Have Been: Letters of Jackson Pollock & Dori G is set in The Hamptons, home of the artist Jackson Pollock. In Tepper’s collection Deer & Other Stories, most of the stories are set on Long Island, or have a strong connection to The Island. Her third and most current published novel From the Umberplatzen (Wilderness House Press, 2012) is a quirky love story set in Germany and told in linked flash fiction.
Before settling down to study writing, Tepper worked as an actor, flight attendant, marketing manager, tour guide, singer, television producer, interior decorator, rescue worker and more.
Hundreds of her stories, poems, essays and interviews appear worldwide in print journals and online venues. Her bi-monthly MONDAY CHAT Interview column ran on the Fictionaut blog for more than a year and is archived on that site. Tepper is host of the reading series FIZZ at KGB Bar in New York City. She has been nominated nine times for the Pushcart Prize.Deer, the title story of her collection, was nominated for NPR Selected Shorts. Her novel WHAT MAY HAVE BEEN: Letters of Jackson Pollock & Dori G (with Gary Percesepe) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.