Two poems by Susanna Rich

Nun Flying Through Walls

(After Míklos Melocco’s sculpture, Budapest)

      Ancient corner convent door leads now to
      a newsstand—Fuji disposables; paprika, like red horns,
dangling;  holographic cards of Jesus over the Danube.
Even locals rarely know of the stone woman above the lintel,

      who flies horizontal through the building’s outer corner—
      soles, black shoes, furls of blue habit
are a stone kite on Judge Petermann Street;
belt to granite wimple—she bursts into Townhouse Road.

      Wall angles to wall where a magician might slice
      through a woman all plumes, décolletage, net tights.
Here, the pink stucco corner chevrons out from her belly.
Bus stop bench across from her, I sit with the lover

      to whom my father shuttled on Delta—United
      States to Hungary, future to past. My red tulips
wilt in her lap. We look at the nun.  I ask how
one manages decades of longing for the Beloved.

      She tells me the only freedom is to turn back,
      like Lot’s wife, until you become the pain.
Here she looks at me. I make myself still.
“Only stone can pass through stone,” she says.

      We look up, again.  “Yes,” I say, “Let no one
      know whether the hands at your lips
pray, hide secrets, or protect your joy.”
“Or,” she adds, “stop hunger with silence.”     

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