Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty-year writer and the author of 11 published books of fiction and poetry and 3 stage plays. She has been nominated 19 times for the Pushcart Prize in both fiction and poetry. Her play ‘The Crooked Heart’ concerning artist Jackson Pollock premiered on October 25, 2022 at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Adapted from an earlier novel, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Another play, LADY IN A POST BOX, co-written with poet and writer Ciaran O’Driscoll is moving toward production in Ireland. Her third play, 28 MARVIN AVENUE is making the rounds. Tepper’s Novel satire titled ‘Office’ has been released by Wilderness House Press. A new Novel ‘Hair of a Fallen Angel’ will be out in the winter.  Susan is a Brand Ambassador for The Galway Review. http://www.susantepper.com

August, Paris

Across the café table a man is drowning,
my beloved, here I met, so help me.
Water had risen to the tops of his eyes,
not a miracle or sacrifice
nor even simple tears
but the springs of who he was,
before he formed
who he would become,
the eventual suffering into later life.
It ripped me. In such a way
as could not be explained or rationalized.
I saw the light would drown him,
grey over the coming winter into spring.
I sat perfectly still, aging in a hotel mirror.

Claude M is a Parisian street painter by day and waiter by night. He sketched this portrait while Susan Isla was writing a poem, at the far end of the Tuileries Garden near Musee de l’Orangerie.