Live Encounters Poetry & Writing February 2026.
Wisconsin Death Trip, poems by Susan Keiser.
Wisconsin Death Trip
1.
Cousin Edna, our relation by habit not blood, owned the town’s
only flower shop, which she tended in a wilted kitchen apron,
hair tidied in bobby-pinned curls, hands gloved in leather when
she handled thorns. Inches taller than me even in her moccasins,
she smothered me in a bear hug the day we met and my mother
ordered flowers for grandmother Caroline’s funeral—white spider
mums for the altar and pink sweetheart roses for the coffin spray.
I was the only one surprised it was just the three of us in the pews
when the gleaming cherry casket arrived at the door and taped
organ music washed over the marble floor stained by streaming
glass saints.
Grandmother’s neighbors were all at her wake the night before,
bustling past me at the door where I stood refusing to go inside
and look at the dead body put to bed in a satin-lined box. But
seeing Cary in her coffin was why they showed up—to chat
about how well she looked, or not, and to inspect the daughter
who left years ago and never visited. The day we picked out the
casket my mother told me that when grandmother found out
she was dying, she pulled my mother onto her bed to whisper
that she hated her, she’d always hated her, and she prayed for her
to get cancer too.
Caroline was buried next to my grandfather, his brothers, his
parents, and his grandparents, in the last available grave
in the family plot. We followed her out of the church, then
followed the hearse to the cemetery and watched without
speaking as she was lowered into the ground and covered
with dirt, grateful for the music coming from a large funeral
several plots over, a mixed tape of hymns and pop songs—
“How Great Thou Art” and “Dust in the Wind.” My mother
held the rose spray in front of her like a shield until the workers
were finished and arranged it on the mound.
a panic that grew on board into quiet cries
she was having a heart attack,
cries that only I was allowed to hear,
until we reached New York
and she was fine.
We arrived on the flight path
that takes planes over the entire length
of the island. Outside my window
I watched the fireworks silently flame
up from the river.
Smoking Gun
Jimmy Lock was lucky enough
to have parents who were never home.
With pockets full of matches and no place to go
he was irresistible to us kids
who followed him despite stern warnings.
Jimmy Lock bought us cigarettes
and taught us to smoke, insisting we inhale
though it made us sick. Bored,
we pressed the tips through dead leaves,
making cinder halos that smoldered orange
when we used them to spy at the sun.
Jimmy Lock was too old to be playing with us,
except for maybe my sister—
I know they were alone in his house once
but never found out what happened.
Bad skin, short blonde lashes,
I can still see him walking toward me
thin lips pressed tight.
No words form.
No smile breaks.
Rosa pteracantha
is a rose with razor-winged thorns
glowing bloody when backlit
like waves atop a red sea rolling
up each bristled stem
of a rose cane of thorns
with pearl-budded flowers
four–petaled not five
blue foliage like pleats
on skirts forever pressed
like a rose herbarium specimen
or a watercolor by Redouté
court painter to Marie-Antoinette
of the one quote like you Gertrude
your Rose Period portrait
looking more like Picasso
than you, O Gertrude,
O so singular Gertrude, you
who could not be pretty
chose to be wise.
© Susan Keiser
Susan Keiser is an interdisciplinary artist who lives in a restored Gothic Victorian in Beacon, New York. Her photographs have been exhibited in solo and group shows in a wide range of galleries, museums, and art fairs and her poetry has been published in the Stone Poetry Quarterly. She is the winner of The Comstock Review‘s 2025 Muriel Craft Bailey Prize. You can find her online at https://susankeiserphotography.com/