flood, as when
my ex left and it began to rain
inside the house,
like the roof failed all at once,
in response to his leaving.
A grieving roof? Is that even a thing?
The rain came in multitudes,
in droves, like supplicants
to a holy place, almost
beautiful, as a shattered
windshield is beautiful,
especially when it rains.
The rain my ex brought down
upon our house was not blood,
but a red-tinted flood
from some impurity
the deluge encountered in the rafters.
It reminded me of a student
in my class, Joyce, twenty-five
years older than the others,
her gray hair waist-length,
most of her teeth missing,
like a cartoon character after
it’s been smashed in the face
with an anvil. Her guide dog,
Bradley.
Imagine my surprise
when she announced on day one
that at any moment she could
begin bleeding from the eyes.
Blackbird
An online journal of literature and the arts
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Diane Seuss
Diane Seuss is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Modern Poetry (Graywolf Press, 2024), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize. frank: sonnets (Graywolf Press, 2021) was the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. Seuss is a member of the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors. She was a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, and the recipient of the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Seuss was raised by a single mother in rural Michigan, which she continues to call home. Her seventh collection, Althea: Poems, is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2027.
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