The Sunday Poet: Susan Tepper

Susan Tepper

Susan Tepper is the author of six published books of fiction and poetry. She lives in the NY area with her husband and her dog Otis.  She has been a writer for twenty years. www.susantepper.com


 

AFTER/DURING for Chris Nguyen

In a pleasant corner of the garden

we sip tea and crunch biscuits

Each telling what we remember

about that war

You what you remember

After— when

our country conceded

to that split country: North & South

leaving it in ruin

Once divided as we are now

but only by a garden wall

shared and tended,

slathered in honeysuckle,

primrose, vine.

I didn’t see that country

when you saw it

after—

Not nearly one percent

of what you saw.

I saw it during the

loading of soldiers and

the half dead onto planes

then from the air where

everything’s small and

smudged like in a painting

While what you saw were

beginnings of a level plane

on which to finally land.