Susan Isla Tepper presented her darkly comic play CLANDESTINE in an Equity Premiere Staged-reading, hosted by SHOPTALK, on June 10 at EAG Guild Hall Theatre, NYC. Her latest Novel “Hair of a Fallen Angel” was published by Spuyten Duyvil Books. A twenty-year writer, she’s written 12 published books of fiction and poetry and 7 stage plays. Honors include 21 Pushcart Prize Nominations. 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. Susan is a Brand Ambassador for The Galway Review. A Youtube music video for her latest novel at: https://youtu.be/W2HVIc4NrqY

Inland Girl

By Susan Isla Tepper

After she saw the sea
in all weather
Servant to this Master—

The girl made the walk
every day
down the steep incline
to the water’s edge

Combing for shells
& shards of sea glass

Secretly
hoping to find
washed up
a message in a bottle

Some eternal misplaced logic
foretelling her life
scrawled by another lost
soul from a different time

The message erasing the pus
of deep wounds
washed at last
by the lamb of God
Sad patterns
she had fallen prey to—

Swirling tide pools roping
her ankles
the inland girl
more than once
toppled in the brack water.

The bottle
it never appeared.

Judith A. Lawrence was the editor/publisher of Lilly Press and River Poets Journal for several decades. She is also a prolific painter, and writer of fiction, memoir, and poetry. Originally from Philadelphia, PA, she now resides in Florida. She has published five chapbooks of poems, written a volume of short stories, and a recent memoir titled “Point of Comfort.” She is currently completing a murder/mystery novel and a book of short poems containing her watercolors, under her nom de plume Juniper Rue.