You Do Not Know Me
I was Maria Boursin then Marthe
de Méligny or Minette Renard
Once a fleuriste of paper flowers
Now Madame Bonnard Pierre's wife
His bourgeois world maligns
Says I'm crazed never leave my tub
Says I'm a lowlife a psychotic
Who makes hell for Pierre
Yet a thousand times he paints
My tubbed breasts my dark nest
His own possession belle laide
Over under in out but am I
Loved well aren't those wall tiles
Brighter more alive than me
Susan Terris’ recent books are Familiar Tense (Marsh Hawk) 2019; Take Two: Film Studies (Omnidawn) 2017, Memos (Omnidawn) 2015; and Ghost of Yesterday: New & Selected Poems (Marsh Hawk) 2012. She's the author of 7 books of poetry, 17 chapbooks, 3 artist's books, and 2 plays. Journals include The Southern Review, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Denver Quarterly, Diode, Blackbird, and Ploughshares. A poem of hers appeared in Pushcart Prize XXXI. A poem from Memos was in Best American Poetry 2015. Her newest book is Dream Fragments, which won the 2019 Swan Scythe Press Award. Ms. Terris is editor emerita of Spillway Magazine and a poetry editor at Pedestal. www.susanterris.com