Leaving Again
On my last evening in this city
I walked
through the park below my mother’s
window. The window that was
my mother’s.
A cold spring, the magnolias
not yet holding up their white cups,
a few
cherry trees brimming pink, sidewalks
strewn with petals the rain
swept down.
These words I slip into my pocket.
Susanna Lang divides her time between Chicago and Uzès, France. The 2024 winner of the Marvin Bell Memorial Poetry Prize from December Magazine, her most recent chapbook, Like This, was released in 2023 (Unsolicited Books), along with her translations of poems by Souad Labbize, My Soul Has No Corners (Diálogos Books). Her third full-length collection of poems, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was published in 2017 by Terrapin Books. In addition to December Magazine, Her poems, translations and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in such publications as The Common, Asymptote, Tupelo Quarterly, American Life in Poetry, Rhino Reviews, Mayday and The Slowdown. Her translations of poetry by Yves Bonnefoy include Words in Stone and The Origin of Language, and she is now working with Souad Labbize and Hélène Dorion on new translations. More information available at www.susannalang.com.