ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Susan L. Leary is the author of five poetry collections, including More Flowers (Trio House Press, 2026); Dressing the Bear (Trio House Press, 2024), selected by Kimberly Blaeser to win the 2023 Louise Bogan Award; and A Buffet Table Fit for Queens (Small Harbor Publishing, 2023), winner of the Washburn Prize. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such places as Indiana Review, Diode Poetry Journal, Cream City Review, Smartish Pace, The Arkansas International, Harpur Palate, Sequestrum, and Verse Daily. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and lives in Indianapolis, IN.
January 7, 2026
Found Poem Built of Endings
I arrive at your mixed messaging scribbled in the upper left-hand corner of the margin: Everyone is feeling down & everyone is feeling better. On top of that, the use of an underline for emphasis. Because (I can only guess): guns. Because a few more hours. Because a confiscated book. Because in September, the surveilled field will arrive as a mirror reflecting the months that were most uncomfortable. Even here, the stark definition of a boy apocalypse. Stolid body, rattled heart: a gas molecule simulating a solid, that in your orange jumpsuit you appear just fine, though not as believably as the hummingbird that lent its heart to the failing engine of a car. Remind me, is it the freedom of monotony or the monotony of freedom? In merely waiting? In merely attempting to convince another of an idea also unknown to me? In humbly confessing, I could have sworn something else was going to happen today — I guess I was wrong.
This poem is part of a larger series of response poems to the journal entries my brother penned while serving 90 days in county jail during the summer of 2020 for addiction-related offenses. More specifically, my brother kept a daily journal with the intent that I would write an accompanying poem for each entry. Though the world told him otherwise, he believed his voice mattered, and we hoped to publish our work together. Eight days after being released, he passed away from a drug overdose, which means our project and his "text" have since taken on new meaning. He often said jail was one ending after another after another, that no activity was given the dignity of completion: sleeping, reading a book, a game of cards, using the tablet. This poem speaks to that characterization, as well as my brother's fear that eventually he'd grow immune to such treatment. The italicized text is excerpted from his journal entry dated 8/29/2020
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
