Gushing

In a good way…

In praise… in delight...

Today I opened up Susan Browne's Zephyr, from Steel Toe Books.

OH MY GOSH!

These poems are amazing.

These poems are conversational—chatty even.

…like pondering how twenty-five hundred
left-handed people are killed annually from using
right-handed products.

You think maybe you know these poems, maybe you worked with them at an ice cream parlor or a bar. You can imagine sitting in these poems' kitchen, at the blue Formica table, and drinking coffee, or lolling on the river bank with a bottle of red wine.

And then

a little gasp

Your sister talks to her husband's ashes
that are in a black enamel box on her dresser
between the Eternity perfume bottle and a dish of earrings.

but the conversation continues

You rode your bicycle up the hill behind your neighborhood,
stood in the mustard weed and listened to the eucalyptus leaves clapping...

and you're enjoying the way the images careen, as though you're on that bicycle, too, until suddenly the shoe drops, the axe falls, the bough breaks, and something in the world, something in you has changed.

Thank you, Ms. Susan Browne.