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Susan Mason Scott

Forecast

Ghost at Delmar and Bemiston

Wound Cast

Forecast

I

New baby smell
like newly sown soil

lingering, rain taps
the loamy window

outside. Brick skins
wear seasons hard

climes fail to notice
evolution. Forecast

clouds and sky
collapse in blues.

II

Three hedge against loss
someone said

too casually,
I mute.

Tomorrow who will forgive
the sin?

My earrings breathe silver
children — two jangle, one boy

lost. Cover my face
with hands so I do not

hear the gaping
hole in soft tissue

he no longer frames my face.

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Ghost at Delmar and Bemiston

In mud and matted grass of night
a ghost stalks the corner of my dreams
Delmar and Bemiston’s weary eyes

reel same narrative same sequence
saddled to groove same skittish alert
the car and laws of physics against you

                        violence
                        motion
                        mass
                        velocity
                        force
                        crash
                        gravity
                        potential
                        [full stop]

Bicycle stripped to bleached bone
u-lock bolts it to post
no gears, pedals, propulsion — a ghost

sinks an inch or so every year idled
same still hangs, above it a name and date
all that remains. The rider missing.

You float above the white shrine intact.


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Wound Cast

A wound flames
ripe skin
to burn to black.
The blister lingers
like faded birth
like tribal scar
like cavern echo
I can’t touch.
It is too deep
inside my head
embers scatter.


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Susan Mason Scott appears in Halfway Down The Stairs, Heartwood Literary Magazine and  Thimble Literary Magazine. She taught GED mathematics prior to committing to poetry. She has lived in several cities (including UCity) and villages around the world. She currently resides in Portland, Oregon, but anticipates a next move.

 

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