A cafe warmed with cinnamon, conversations across tables,
ideas that disappear into the next word.
All we can count on is change, charred wood in a fireplace
that becomes a beaver’s tail.
When I was a child I conjured an invisible trap door in the dining room
leading me out to vast realms I didn’t name, but understood as poems.
These days I consult the thesaurus for how many ways I can mean what I say,
like the word possibility which can also be called a hope or a prayer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Dambroff is a poet, performer, and teacher. Her poetry chapbook, “Conversations with Trees” was published in 2018 by Finishing Line Press. Her latest manuscript ,“A Chair Keeps the Floor Down”, dives deeply into her long career as a Special Eduucation teacher, and is now under submission. She has been published in many literary journals and anthologies, including “Civil Liberties United, Ghosts of the Holocaust, Stoneboat, Red Bird Chapbooks, and Earth’s Daughters. Her first book of poems, “Memory in Bone” was published in a limited letterpress edition in 1984 by Black Oyster Press. She performs throughout the Bay Area in Spoken Duets, a poetic collaboration with Chris Kammler.