Susan Isla Tepper has a Novella just out from Wilderness House Press titled GIRL UPSIDE DOWN. Currently it is only available from the author direct.  A twenty-year writer, she has penned 14 published books of fiction and poetry and 7 Stage Plays. Honors include 25 Pushcart Prize Nominations, a win in the Francis Ford Copolla Zoetrope Contest for the Novel (2003), Second Place Winner in Story/South Million Writers Award and more. Her stage 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.
http://www.susantepper.com

DUG OUT OF TIME

By Susan Isla Tepper

Little girl calls out
to me
smeared and smiling
from the picture’s mottled
scratched plastic surface

Taken at the amusement park
photo booth:
Tarnished metal frames the girl
dug out of time

Stamped on back
PLAYLAND
with happy-face clowns,
a mother’s careful writing:
August, the girl’s name,
the year.

Under the eaves
narrow bed pressed
against a wall
a crack of hall light
splattering the floor
the girl’s prayers whispered
for mother, for father
for brother.

All gone now.

Little girl
heart as large
as a star—