Happy Birthday, Susan Rich! & a poem "Cloud Pharmacy"

From a party at Susan's a several years ago.

From our Poets in Pajamas reading at the Alexis Hotel

My good friend (and talented poet!!) is having a birthday today, so in honor of her birth, I will share a poem from her and her book, Cloud Pharmacy!  (Yes, it's the title poem!)

(Oh and a special treat, her book CLOUD PHARMACY is only $6.99 in the Kindle store - and $2.99 if you bought her book from Amazon...take the cloud with you!)


Cloud Pharmacy

How many apothecary drawers
could I fill with these deliberations?

The pharmacist’s paper cone
parsing out a quarter cup

of love’s resistant drug,
spoons measuring new prescriptions

for my uncertainty, hipsway, gesture.
Give me cobalt bottles

leftover from aunt iska’s cures,
albastrons of ointments, resins to resolve

the double-helix of desire inside of me.
Where is the votive, the vessel,

the slide rule calculation—
to know how much good love

alchemically speaking is
good enough?

I want spindrift nights on swimmer’s
thighs. I want an Egyptian

elevator inlaid in camphorwood and ivory;
a West African drumbeat, an eggnog, a god.

I want waves and summer all year long.
I want you. And I want more.

First published in City Arts

~ Kells
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