Two poems by Susan Barry-Schulz

Jones
—on reading Alex D. at Jones Beach State Park, Field 2

I took your book, Love, to the windswept 

beach. Grains of sand hurled 

 

themselves deep into its spine. 

Pages fluttered—

 

feathers and pages, 

papery wings inked in fire. 

 

A single cloud slid across 

the bluest of skies, darkening 

 

the seawater, casting shadows 

on the threadbare quilt.

 

We held our breath for a moment 

until everything sparkled again, 

 

as before. I took your book, Love, 

to the beach—pelted by feldspar, 

 

quartz, tiny fragments of shells—

and didn’t we all 

 

take shelter there; traveling monarchs, 

herring gulls, ghost crabs;

 

all of us restless creatures

at the shoreline 

wanting in.




Playing Scrabble with Pete Buttigeig

In my dream I worry about the way 

he looks out the window. The way he looks 

out the window worries me. He is pale 

and thinner than he was last month. In my 

dream we shuffle our tiles by the fire, draw 

vowels from a velvety bag. But why would I

agree to play knowing he can easily 

demolish me in seven languages. 

Or is it eight? He stands by the window 

in his navy-blue parka, looking out, 

and I can tell that it’s March by the way 

the darkness falls on his face and the gray 

piles of snow and the restless sound the wind 

makes pressing against the panes. I want 

to tell him to rest. My own son walks 

across Spain in the way of St. James 

and keeps walking. I bought him a navy- 

blue parka too, once. Calvin Klein with a 

removable hood. The last time he was home

he left it—just the removable hood—behind 

on his dresser, but I’m pretty sure that he’ll 

come back for it someday.

 

Picture of Susan Barry-Schulz

Susan Barry-Schulz

Susan Barry-Schulz grew up just outside of Buffalo, New York. She is a licensed physical therapist living with a chronic illness and an advocate for mental health awareness and reducing stigma in IBD. Her poetry has appeared in The Wild World, New Verse News, SWWIM, Barrelhouse online, Nightingale & Sparrow, Shooter Literary Magazine, Kissing Dynamite, Bending Genres, Feral, Quartet, and elsewhere.

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