Suzanne’s Career


Has the last smoke curdled on her lips

like sea foam on the falling tide?

The dusk is gusting from a thousand years

of unexpected corners where the spark of it

this yes, yes this is it unspoken but splintering

like trumpet blasts in the blood

has leapt like a sun from the cold ground.

Is she waiting for the decent creak

of his step in the pretending house,

where the day will slide pale and smiling

and still a little drunk into the rumple of sheets?

She knew that he would come but still she

waited just for you; knowing the groan

of his step in the hall baring her teeth

to the dark he took to be his own.

Daniel Fitzpatrick

Daniel Fitzpatrick is the author of two novels, two poetry collections, and a translation of The Divine Comedy. He lives in New Orleans and edits a journal called Joie de Vivre.

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Moonrise over Manhattan