The Disappearing Word: poems by Susan Austin, selected by Ron Mohring as Number 9 in Volume 4 of our Editor’s Series.
Publication: May 31, 2020 [100 copies]
27 pages
ISBN 978-1-949333-67-1
$ 9.00
Susan Austin lives in Idaho with her husband and dog. A former Michener Fellow, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, The Cincinnati Review, High Desert Journal, Sow’s Ear, BOAAT, and other journals. Her chapbook Requiem was published by Seven Kitchens Press in 2019.
Love Quarrel with Ixodes
I leaned into you.
My hands, my many bodies of desire
brushing tips of natal grass.
You pooled into me, devoured
nouns, verbs, shoes, lucidity,
the names of flowers, flowers
becoming things. Of all the things
you tried to teach, patience
my failing grade.
Together we shuttered the days.
O the dirt we loved, sagebrush,
the tender places–armpits, ear lobes, labia.
Stealth brown body and eight bowed legs,
the way Houdini made an elephant vanish
you inhabited me. Bountiful spit.
We midwifed each other.
–Thank you to Puerto del Sol for first publishing this poem.
- Order Susan’s chapbook here. Thank you for supporting this poet!
Seven Kitchens Press 