Every morning before breakfast you go out, still in your sky-blue pajamas, to see what’s changed
in your garden. This time a poppy opened overnight, not the fields- of-Flanders color in the photos but
a deep silky crimson like the dress I bought on our first trip to Paris—that red. I should see if it’s stored in the attic
though I may have given it to Goodwill since I did not foresee this poppy and where would I ever go
in a red silk dress from Paris? Still, it would feel good next to my skin and I could wear it to drink wine
in the garden, you and me clinking our best crystal while the maple waves its banners and robins
hunt worms where you weeded after breakfast while I was still in my nightgown, also sky-blue
though we didn’t plan on matching sleepwear. I was reading the Times you gave me along with the news
of your poppy, or maybe writing a poem so I’d have something to give you later while we drink our glasses of wine.
Susanna Lang divides her time between Chicago and Uzès, France. She was the 2024 winner of the Marvin Bell Memorial Poetry Prize from December Mag, and her most recent chapbook, Like This, was released in 2023 (Unsolicited Books), along with her translations of poems by Souad Labbize, My Soul Has No Corners (Diálogos Books). Her third full-length collection of poems, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was published in 2017 by Terrapin Books. Her poems, translations and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in such publications as The Common, Asymptote, Tupelo Quarterly, American Life in Poetry, Rhino Reviews, Mayday and The Slowdown. Her translations of poetry by Yves Bonnefoy include Words in Stone and The Origin of Language, and she is now working with Souad Labbize, Hélène Dorion and Christine Guinard on new translations. More information available at www.susannalang.com.
