#susan mitchell

[mournfulroses]

Susan Mitchell, from a poem titled "Lost Parrot," featured in The Atlantic Monthly

[headlightsforever]

Susan Mitchell

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Detail of inlaid eye belonging to the "Seated Scribe" , 2600 - 2350 BC. Crafted from red-veined white magnesite and rock crystal.

The Polished crystal was covered in the back with material used to create the color of the iris. :: [Treasures of ancient Egypt]

* * * *

The Dead, By Susan Mitchell

At night the dead come down to the river to drink. They unburden themselves of their fears, their worries for us. They take out the old photographs. They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures, which are cracked and yellow. Some dead find their way to our houses. They go up to the attics. They read the letters they sent us, insatiable for signs of their love. They tell each other stories. They make so much noise they wake us as they did when we were children and they stayed up drinking all night in the kitchen.

[drewsbarrymcre]

I have been through a lot in my life.

[lagaleriapopurri]

Susan Mitchell

[isabellaofparma]

[words-in-lines]

The Bear Tonight the bear comes to the orchard and, balancing on her hind legs, dances under the apple trees, hanging onto their boughs, dragging their branches down to earth. Look again. It is not the bear but some afterimage of her like the car I once saw in the driveway after the last guest had gone. Snow pulls the apple boughs to the ground. Whatever moves in the orchard— heavy, lumbering—is clear as wind. The bear is long gone. Drunk on apples, she banged over the trash cans that fall night, then skidded downstream. By now she must be logged in for the winter. Unless she is choosy. I imagine her as very choosy, sniffing at the huge logs, pawing them, trying each one on for size, but always coming out again. Until tonight. Tonight sap freezes under her skin. Her breath leaves white apples in the air. As she walks she dozes, listening to the sound of axes chopping wood. Somewhere she can never catch up to trees are falling. Chips pile up like snow. When she does find it finally, the log draws her in as easily as a forest, and for a while she continues to see, just ahead of her, the moon trapped like a salmon in the ice.

Susan Mitchell, “The Bear”

[isabellaofparma]