SUSAN SANDERS - POEMS

Susan Sanders poems have appeared in Green Mountains Review, Falling Star Magazine, Common Ground Review,
The Vermont Literary Review, The Lucid Stone, Soapbox, Ariel Chart and several others. With a lake to her east
and the Canadian border to the north, she spends her time walking, biking and enjoying Vermont's rural beauty.

She teaches creative writing classes for the Northern Vermont University and ESL for NEKLS, Inc.

Cycles ​

I was wearing brushed soft cotton
banana colored pajamas, 
running after dinner on
the hard wood floor, trying 
to even the score by 
sliding in socks until, I 
smacked my forehead
into the coffee table.
Five stiches later, my father 
kicked the shit out of the 
hard oak as if it were alive.

He fire stormed up and down
the stairs and never swore on 
Sundays. But after church,
he turned his hard hands on
my brother and I taking turns
to see who would cry first.

And now there’s my fiancé
dragging me up drunk from 
the bed, telling me to look
to look hard at his shiny car 
look, at that white pearl girl.
And then he twists both of my
arms, squints and smiles but 
all I see are my father’s teeth. 




​

​On the Border

A glance in the right direction.      
A map with the route gone south.
A granite fish with an open mouth.     

Fractured light lifts the body out.      
Hard eyes of onyx, gleamed. 
Seven sisters ride high in the sky.

A chance collision course, fell off course.     
A knotted-up stomach full of rhymes.
Pellets sparked behind stove glass.     

The heart skipped a beat too soon.          
The sun shined its brilliance     
threading a sea of cotton clouds.

There’s power in each lonely hour. 
A long distance, lost existence 
of space and love’s bad time. 

​

Obedience
​

As a child, my father 
had one look that was 
worse than his hard hand.
Those stony eyes could 
stop my train of thought 
because his mad voice 
was stronger than any
fast smack could hurt.

Years later, there were
new ways to stay invisible 
when dinner had burned or 
the new baby would not 
stop crying and I took both
kids and hid behind the 
door before their father had
the chance to take  
his hard day 
out on us. 

​