Susan Isla Tepper is a twenty-year writer and the author of 11 published books of fiction and poetry and 5 stage plays. She has been nominated 20 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. 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

Paris Hallucinations

3 Poem Trilogy by Susan Isla Tepper

Wash

At night you wash the cream from your arms
thick petals, once staked to flowers
fill a ceiling gone to roses then still—

Vase on the window ledge, half murky
half done, and bugs are hovering
specks in shifting light: that room stayed in

Every season its walls, mold

a radiator hissing steam around
the river that carries you back—

Wet gutters stream mirrors
the dawn a red sunrise: the
one child, dropped from your body one leaf.

Cliff House, Varengeville

You follow distant trees
green feather-fronds, hanging
a sea wall you dreamt
your father and
his house, at last
perched on a rocky cliff
will slide into water
churning white foam, its crust
folding your eyes back
—the morning and
trying not to open.

Grey Air

A raincoat for Paris—
December and raining
you kept forgetting me

tramping narrow back streets
the buildings, grey air
flattening arms and legs
tinted spice:

I bought a scarf to cover
where my neck was drowning.

VASE BLUE by Eleni Gavrielatos

Eleni Gavrielatos is an illustrator, potter, and cum laude graduate of Alfred University, School of Art & Design. Her work has been exhibited at the Art Students League, the Long Island Museum, and the Mill Pond House and has been published online at Jellyfish Review and forthcoming at Centaur. Her portfolio website is elenigavrielatos.com.