Crave by Susan Tepper

What you crave

is not in the language

of given—

not the spark that

beats your soul’s 

bird wings in the night

Remember cloud fluff

conjoined with 

a startling blue 

mist rising out of the grass

dandelion weeds 

lined along the fence were 

swaying—

Before the morning 

was even over

Susan Tepper is the author of eight published books of fiction and poetry. Her most recent book just out in June is a road novel titled “What Drives Men.” It was shortlisted at American Book Fest Best Book Awards. Other honors and awards include eighteen Pushcart Nominations, a Pulitzer Prize Nomination for the novel “What May Have Been” (Cervena Barva Press, and currently being adapted for the stage), NPR’s Selected Shorts Series, Second Place Winner in Story/South Million Writers Award, Best Story of 17 Years of Vestal Review, Shortlisted 7th in the Zoetrope Novel Contest (2003), Best of the Net and more. Tepper is a native New Yorker.