by Susannah Jordan
Poet’s Statement
“Late in the summer of 2020, I moved my family from NYC to Los Angeles. In the midst of a global pandemic, historic wildfires, and a record breaking heatwave, processing this new and foreign environment seemed impossible. As a means of coping in this disorienting, liminal space, I began writing fragmented letters to a poet friend who lives on the east coast and grew up in LA.”
Letter #4
Dear Poet,
It hasn’t rained here for 11 days. So,
I bought some sage to reset the house.
A house full of things that are not mine.
It feels inappropriate to burn things on purpose in this environment
where fire is the only weather allowed.
I learned today that the Indigenous Peoples of the Great Plains
call sweetgrass “the hair of mother earth”.
Tie it up to use it as a smudge.
Northern Europeans make it into booze.
And the Catholics in Italy braid it and lay it
in front of the narthex of their churches.
When people come and step on the bundled hair,
it creates an aroma that hangs in the humidity.
When I close my eyes hard enough, I can taste it.
You asked about the adjustment:
The children seem happy, but quicker to cry.
Their laughter borders on shrill. I wonder
if that’s just because the air is so dry
there is nothing to cut it.
Letter #6
Dear Poet,
The fires are getting closer.
Berries grow straight out of the dirt.
Kumquats fall from trees. Nothing is safe to eat.
It’s impossible to make sense of this landscape.
Just yesterday a redwood broke through
the far side of my fence. I went outside to feel the pressure,
and found teenagers pressed up against the joint.
Exactly where the wood dovetails–consumed in
the grounded quiet of clashing bones,
of hard bodies, half undressed and
recklessly eating from the face down.
These are the things we remember.
These are the things I try to forget.
A misunderstanding, a reconciliation,
the pool of desire at the back of my pelvis
where we finally stop trying to touch
and actually, feel into the death that defines longing.
My kids’ mouths are learning to form new words:
Drought, injustice, sepulveda.
I dread having to call the neighbors, but
the redwood roots have invited themselves in.
The cement is starting to crack,
I can see it from the kitchen window.
Letter #7
Dear Poet,
There was a dead bird in the shallow end of the pool this morning.
It looked shook, like the death was hard and surprising,
face down, legs out stiff—as if trying to brace for landing.
I fished it out with a skimmer and half expected it to fly away,
when it didn’t, put it on the curb out front.
It reminded me of the last time I was in Baltimore.
It rained for most of the day. I spent the morning crafting
a crude bowl out of a wet slab of clay. When it was finished,
I drove my bowl to a church nearby to leave it for you,
inside beneath the prayer candles.
I stop at every church to light these kinds of candles.
To leave donations. It’s hard to reconcile.
I don’t know who I’m lighting them for anymore,
so I’ve never told anyone.
Turns out, I couldn’t get into the church.
It was locked, and I was soaked through all of my clothes anyway.
On my way home, I stopped for a cup of tea,
a man asked me what happened.
Kate Sweeney resides in Los Angeles and is the Marketing Director for The Adroit Journal & a political marketing executive.
Susannah Jordan earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Queens University of Charlotte, where she served as Nonfiction Editorial Assistant for Qu, the school’s literary magazine. Her recent work has appeared in detritus, The Drabble, 101 Fiction, Rathalla Review, and 50-Word Stories. Her visual art has appeared in 3Elements Literary Review, Cotton Xenomorph, The Green Light, formercactus, Riggwelter Press, and The Tishman Review.