Susan Terris

Susan Terris
 
Girl with the Green Face
 
She’s there again, confronting me—her hair finger-combed, her part a sheep’s-path. She’s silent, posing, pleading, trying to shrink herself flatter. Dimensionality is not what she wants. Nor context either. From her cave of green shade, she sees me as a silvered light she wants to cloud up and liquify. Girl on the cusp, she has no key and is looking for a way in/a way out. Her face darkens. She moves closer, but I stand my ground. With translucent fingers, she touches me, seeking to be my doppelgänger and shadow me. She wants to steal everything. Concentrating, she breathes on me, kisses me, touches her tongue to my cheek, tries to slide under my skin. All is a blur now. I can’t see or see past her. Then suddenly, an agitated, feral creature, she is striking and breaking me. Before her, I am powerless. I am…I am…am only shards now—lost, broken, sharp, dangerous to myself and to her.
 
 
 
Susan Terris’ most recent book is Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk Press, 2013). She is the author of 6 books of poetry, 15 chapbooks, and 3 artist’s books. Journal publications include About Place, The Southern Review, Denver Quarterly, The Journal, North American Review, and 
Ploughshares. A poem of hers from Field appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI. She’s editor of Spillway Magazine. Her book MEMOS will be published by Omnidawn in 2015. www.susanterris.com