Photography © Glenn Bowie

 

Smudged

My breath will record
the time here
smudged on glass—
irrevocable story
same as the rest
Everyone looking back
thinks their own
was a glory time, one way
or the other— later,
when the stink stops
and the blood is wiped up
You will pause and
remember all that happened
in this life’s blink.

 

Susan Isla Tepper is an award-winning poet, fiction writer, essayist and playwright. The author of ten published books, her current projects are two plays in production and a novel due out late this year. Tepper’s work has been published worldwide for over twenty years, nominated nineteen times for the Pushcart Prize, and received a Pulitzer Prize Nomination for a novel that was adapted into her stage play The Crooked Heart, in addition to other awards and honors.

Glenn Bowie is a published poet, lyricist, musician and photographer from the Boston area. He also owns and operates an elevator company that supplies custom-built elevators for clients from New England to Hollywood. Author of two poetry and photograph collections (Under the Weight of Whispers and Into the Thorns and Honey) on Big Table Publishing. He donates all profits from his books to various charities for the homeless and local animal shelters.