Disabled. By Susan Tepper

Your heart slipped 

through 

penetrating darkness

is disabled.

There’s no longer 

any room 

at the bar, around 

the fire— 

no one can see

too busy 

hoisting their own

to notice

the pus crusting 

your mouth/convenient

for warding off truth 

however simple

[you started out low]

seemed a good thing

what might come 

out of being human.

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.