Photography © Chad Parenteau

 

White Trees

After the cold months
the white trees come
one of the first to bloom
in a snowy burst
like a bride
jumping out of a cake.
My first wedding
I wore blue.
The second time
a seashell pink.
I’m ready to step into
white after the long winter:
skin ragged
a twigged crown
set on my hair
to capture the veil.

 

Susan Isla Tepper has two new books forthcoming from Wilderness House Press. Her novel Hair of a Fallen Angel came out from Spuyten Duyvil Books, NYC, in the fall of last year. A twenty-year writer, she is the author of twelve published books of fiction and poetry and 7 stage plays. Tepper has been nominated 24 times for the Pushcart Prize in both fiction and poetry. Her play The Crooked Heart is a broken love story concerning artist Jackson Pollock that premiered on October 25, 2022 at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Adapted from an earlier novel, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. A YouTube music video for her latest novel was produced by Tim Young and Paula Parente: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2HVIc4NrqY

Chad Parenteau is Associate Editor of Oddball Magazine.