Two Poems

by Susan Demarset

My Spirit Animal

“There is another world, but it is in this one.”

                                                            Paul Éluard

I mean, the horse although I’m partial

to the hind: who has not seen a deer

up close and surely recognized a god?

Or any small pup as they say in Dutch, kleine hond,

I mean, I think the need was always there, before

I even learned to walk, before I kneeled against a wall

and heard the morning cry of birds; maybe a red-eyed vireo

was singing“Look at me. Way up high. Over here. In a tree,”

and maybe I heard but didn’t know

as I made not one good choice in college

save have a wisdom-tooth removed, and yet

I’m sure someone was there, maybe

beside me in the room, maybe

the hind, the hond, or horse who from

the first fall saved my life, who stood beside

and lowered his neck, who let me slide the halter on

and walk, not saying anything, not look at me, just walk.

Canto 33, Inferno

Then Ugolino, who was gnawing the back

of the Archbishop’s head, confessed he’d eaten

his children after the Archbishop had starved them to death,

and I thought God, it doesn’t get much worse than that, but then

it turned out his sin was for being a traitor, for treachery against

his own citizen state, and he didn’t need anyone’s facile forgiveness

for chewing his own children’s flesh to the bone; he just wanted

everyone in Eternity to know: inarguably, the Archbishop was

worse: (“ho mangiato i bambini, ma lui era peggio”)

“I ate the children, but he was worse,”

for what is faith without belief?

BIO: Susan Demarest’s poems and creative nonfiction have appeared in Tar River Poetry, Hawaii Review, Antiques and Collectibles, Ibbetson, Medical Literary Messenger, Molecule:Tiny Lit, Hole in the Head Review, Panoplyzine, Bookends Review, L’Esprit, Red Skies Anthology, and Orange Blossom Review among others. She is a musician and educator who lives in Southern Maine. trouvères.net.