Susan L. Leary

A Student Says ‘Empathy Doesn’t Make Sense’

Even still, sometimes, we must pull back
the curtains on our own bodies, say, here’s my sorrow,
let me show it to you. The hand we’re dealt demands
a singular kind of rescue. A bombardment of amber.
The well-remembered weather of our youthful

affairs. Sometimes, persuasion can be a safety, too,
as when we fed lush apples to the horses
straight from our palms. Now, rather than lug our untimely
impatience out into the open field, let’s agree
to dissolve the deep quiet that baffles the amusement

of children. Because the sun’s out & it’s snowing.
A stranger is fleeing the alleyway, barefoot & absent
of warm clothes. Invite her in. What hurts the most in us
can be anybody’s business. Our own damage,
the cruelest, most obvious balm.       

Susan L. Leary is the author of A Buffet Table Fit for Queens (Small Harbor Publishing, 2023), winner of the Washburn Prize; Contraband Paradise (Main Street Rag, 2021); and This Girl, Your Disciple (Finishing Line Press, 2019), finalist for The Heartland Review Press Chapbook Prize and semi-finalist for the Elyse Wolf Prize with Slate Roof Press. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in such places as Tar River Poetry, Superstition Review, Tahoma Literary Review, Cherry Tree, The MacGuffin, Jet Fuel Review, jmww, and Pithead Chapel. Recently, she was a finalist for the 16th Mudfish Poetry Prize, judged by Marie Howe. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami, where she also teaches Writing Studies. Visit her at www.susanlleary.com.