Whose hand is this I hold up
to the sun for the glint
of the blue oval gem,
this eye with no pupil,
the blue, you said,
of your mother’s eyes,
this miniature crater
lake filled with sky,
a cabochon with no facets,
cloudy with decades
of soap, crazed with scratches,
an extra knuckle, you said,
this ring too absorbed
by your swelling hand, I thought,
for the mortician to slide off,
gold filigree setting,
not gold at all, some yellow
alloy, tarnished inside,
with your cells, oils, sweat
that I wear now,
on my ring finger
leading to the heart,
the one so hard to lift
on its own.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 1.
Susanna Rich is a bilingual Hungarian-American poet and translator, a Fulbright Fellow in Creative Writing (Hungary), a Collegium Budapest Fellow, and Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Kean University (NJ). With two Emmy Award nominations for poetry, Susanna is founding producer and principal performer at Wild Nights Productions, LLC. Her repertoire includes the musical Shakespeare’s *itches: The Women v. Will and ashes, ashes: A Poet Responds to the Shoah. Susanna is author of five poetry collections, most recently Beware the House and SHOUT! Poetry for Suffrage.
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