December 10th: Susan Briante

DECEMBER POEM

      for Farid

You post
a link
to a love song
on my wall
I tell you
to wear
a coat
it’s cold
it’s months
since we’ve stood
at a baggage
carousel
O brave
new country
of short days
this year
I just want
to love
each other
kind
let each
day stand
before
our red door
like David Rawlings
singing the part
of Emmylou Harris
singing the part
of Alison Krauss
we will work
something out
in our own voice.

Susan Briante is the author of Pioneers in the Study of Motion (Ahsahta Press, 2007) and Utopia Minus (Ahsahta Press, 2011). Lately, she can be found translating the work of Uruguayan poet Marosa di Giorgio as well as writing poems about the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Briante is an assistant professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Texas at Dallas. She lives in Dallas with the poet Farid Matuk and their daughter.

susan briante

*

Solstice

So the jet stream carries nickel light and narrow births.

Ink slows in your pen. Do not breathe too deeply.

Gravel shifts from the east to the west side of the street.

Cars park at the edge of a vacancy.

Nothing bleeds deeper than traffic lights.

Walking south on Bedford, he takes milk from a carton in sips.

No—I said— he slips a cigarette from the pack to his lips.

Lie down for me. This is no time for resurrections.

*

Susan Briante’s poems have appeared in Court Green, Damn the Caesars and Mandorla. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Pioneers in the Study of Motion, was recently published by Ahsahta Press. Briante teaches at the University of Texas at Dallas, where she lives with the poet Farid Matuk.