Eden in the Rearview Mirror — Blackbird Archive

← v5n2, Fall 2006

Evening, and the river.

The longitudes inside you.

You reach in, pocketing a green furred stone.

Change the river,

you change too.

At first the world was yours but you owned nothing.

Sweet tarnished pears.

Dusty plums.

Now, only ache.

The apple’s broken skin.

Small bitter bite.

You’re sick from this fruit.

What you might need now.

The horizon in you starts to climb.

Up. Away.

Everything left behind

in dust—

The sheer silk of the river wrinkling

salmon-pink in last-ditch sunlight.

You’re already gone.

The way a mountain’s deckled edges disappear in rain.

memory loss home

Susan Elbe

Susan Elbe (1946–2017) is the author of many poetry collections, including The Map of What Happened (The Backwaters Press, 2013), which won the 2012 Backwaters Press Book Prize and the Jacar Press 2014 Julie Suk Prize for the best book of poetry published by an independent press; Eden in the Rearview Mirror (Word Poetry, 2007); Where Good Swimmers Drown (Concrete Wolf Press, 2012), winner of the 2011 Concrete Wolf Chapbook prize; and Light Made from Nothing (Parallel Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in many literary journals and anthologies, including diode, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Verse Daily, Watching the Perseids: The Backwaters Press 20th Anniversary Anthology (The Backwaters Press, 2017), and New Poetry from the Midwest (New American Press, Fall 2016). Elbe served on the Council for Wisconsin Writers Board of Directors and on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. We note with sadness that Susan Elbe died suddenly in September 2017. We will miss her poetic voice. Photo by Katrin Talbot