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.