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SUSAN GRIMM

Crime Scene

If this were a murder instead of a poem, we’d find a body
in here on the concrete floor. If this were a mystery
instead of a dirge, answers would exist in the final

pages. Is there always something dead at the core
of a poem like the fairy tale flower of gold with black
at its heart? This poem was supposed to be

about my mother (who is dead), about her house of thought
with its plastic strips blowing and grit on the floor
(under her body). The plastic’s transparent but I can’t see

through; clarity stacked thickly becomes something else.
Always wiping our eyes, demonstrating the lunging
stance, Mother left ritual signs on the threshold

trying to indicate the way, reverse Hansel, her breadcrumbs
turning to stone. Looking through the gelatin of glass—inside
or out? is that one of the questions?—more than frost glazing her eye,

she’s the last thing (farewell gesture) arranged on the path.



Susan Grimm is a native of Cleveland, Ohio. Her poems have appeared in West Branch, Poetry Northwest, Rattapallax, The Journal, and other publications. In 1996, she was awarded an Individual Artists Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. Her chapbook Almost Home was published by the Cleveland State University Poetry Center in 1997. In 1999, she was named Ohio Poet of the Year by the Ohio Poetry Day Association. Her first full length collection, Lake Erie Blue, was published in 2004 by BkMk Press.



Boxcar Poetry Review - ISSN 1931-1761