Susan Rich

Susan Rich Poems

And some time later in the lingering
blaze of summer, in the first days
after September 11th you phoned –
...

The End flashes on the screen all curlicues.
It's a film we've seen a dozen times before.
The lovers kiss, their bodies fall from view
...

Falls deep into disarray; dishes
cleansed by the cat's rough tongue -

his whiskers skate along the dinner plate's
...

Susan Rich Biography

Susan Rich is the author of Cures Include Travel, recently released by White Pine Press. Her book The Cartographer’s Tongue Poems of the World won the PEN USA Award for Poetry and the Peace Corps Writers Award for Best Poetry Book. She has been the recipient of an Artist Trust Award and a Fulbright Fellowship. Her poems have recently appeared or will be appearing in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry East, North American Review, and Quarterly West. She is an editor of Floating Bridge Press, dedicated to publishing poets from throughout the state of Washington.)

The Best Poem Of Susan Rich

Mohamud At The Mosque - For My Student Upon His Graduation

And some time later in the lingering
blaze of summer, in the first days
after September 11th you phoned –

if I don’t tell anyone my name I’ll
pass for an African American.
And suddenly, this seemed a sensible solution –

the best protection: to be a black man
born in America, more invisible than
Somalian, Muslim, asylum seeker –

Others stayed away that first Friday
but your uncle insisted that you pray.
How fortunes change so swiftly

I hear you say. And as you parallel
park across from the Tukwila
mosque, a young woman cries out –

her fears unfurling beside your battered car
go back where you came from!
You stand, both of you, dazzling there

in the mid-day light, her pavement
facing off along your parking strip.
You tell me she is only trying

to protect her lawn, her trees,
her untended heart – already
alarmed by its directive.

And when the neighborhood
policeman appears, asks
you, asks her, asks the others –

So what seems to be the problem
He actually expects an answer,
as if any of us could name it –

as if perhaps your prayers
chanted as this cop stands guard
watching over your windshield

during the entire service
might hold back the world
we did not want to know.

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