Diane Seuss: Hindenburg
And I’m like he’s got a tumor the size of the Hindenburg and she’s like in his belly and I’m like no not in his belly hell the belly would be a blessing the belly would be all John 3:16 and then I’m like no it’s in his neck it’s in his goddamned neck and I blame the government and she’s like who do you blame and I’m all I blame the government and she’s like if I were you I’d blame the bug spray you remember how when we was all kids how the little yellow airplane would bug spray the soybean fields and I’m like oh you better believe I remember but with him the bug spray was small potatoes compared to Nam and she’s like compared to what and I’m like compared to Nam to Vietnam and she’s like oh Vietnam he was over there for how long and I’m like long enough I’m all long enough to end up with a tumor on his neck the size of the Hindenburg and she’s like the size of what and I’m like the Hindenburg and she’s like what’s the Hindenburg and I’m all it was a balloon a balloon that caught fire in the sky and she’s like a balloon on fire and I’m all a balloon on fire and she’s like a balloon doesn’t seem that big and I’m like that one was
DIANE SEUSS’s second collection, Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open, received the Juniper Prize for Poetry and was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2010. Her poems have appeared in a range of literary magazines, most recently in The Missouri Review, Tar River Poetry, Poetry, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. Diane received the Cultural Center of Cape Cod Poetry Prize in 2011, and the Summer Literary Seminars Poetry Prize. She received a Pushcart Prize in 2012 for a poem that originally appeared in Blackbird. Two short prose pieces received prizes in 2012 from Mid-American Review and Wag’s Revue. Diane taught at the Frost Center in the summer of 2012, and she has been named the McLean Distinguished Visiting Writer at Colorado College for the fall of 2012. She is Writer in Residence at Kalamazoo College, in Michigan.
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