By Noon by Susan Tepper

An erasure—

One day you’re gone.

Despite that you show up

for breakfast daily, 

even make the meal 

which is eaten without  

so much as a nod 

or complaint:

These eggs are runny.

Coffee is weak.

Toast tastes fucking burnt.

All would be welcomed:

An assurance: you live 

and breathe.

By noon your heart is

fist-bunched,

is an avalanche

out of control slide.

You dress to go hunting

in too much perfume, 

leather and spikes, 

any bar on any street 

a nice glass, reflective,

for pouring liquid nitrogen 

down a narrow pipe.  

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.