Susan Donnelly: "The Guardian"

 

Like the sound of rain

through leaves

at a summer window

 

the rustle of newspaper

as you start to fall

asleep in your chair

 

drooping forward

the pages crumpling

into a rattle

 

that startles you

awake to the watch

you must keep

 

on the world’s

dispatches

though the words

 

turn back into water

and the window again

fills up with rain

 

 

Susan Donnelly is the author of three poetry collections, most recently Capture the Flag, and three chapbooks.  Her poems have appeared in many journals, anthologies and textbooks, including New Yorker, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.  She lives, writes, and teaches poetry in Cambridge, Massachusetts.