Broken Sonnet by Susan Rich

Broken Sonnet

How do you begin a poem when you know
How the story ends? Even with a dog,
Joule! who traveled everywhere with him,
Even with his student whom he taught to listen
To each human heartbeat, to open a central line;
Even caretaking U.S. Veterans and with just one
Small camera curled in his right palm like a charm, he—
A kind man (in each account) an activist, Minneapolis—
Light-skinned, bicycle fanatic, in a resonant voice he keeps asking
Are you okay? helping the woman being pepper-sprayed
up from the cold street, making sure she can breathe.
Even then.

                                            for Alex Pretti, 1988-2026

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Susan Rich is the author of six collections of poetry and co-editor/editor of three anthologies. Her recent books include Birdbrains: A Lyrical Guide to Washington State Birds,  Blue Atlas,  and Gallery of Postcards and Maps: New and Selected Poems. Susan co-edited Demystifying the Manuscript: Creating a Book of Poems with Kelli Russell Agodon and co-edited, The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Crossing Borders with Ilya Kaminsky and Brian Turner. Her other poetry books include Cloud Pharmacy, The Alchemist’s Kitchen, Cures Include Travel, and The Cartographer’s Tongue–Poems of the World, winner of the PEN USA Award. A winner of the Crab Creek Review Prize, Times Literary Supplement Award (London), and a Fulbright Fellowship. Rich’s poems appear in the Harvard Review, Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere.