Trouble

Abstract

Trouble Susanna Lang (bio) The dead have always provoked trouble.They remember, and nothing more can be doneto silence them. Yes, they say.Those are tanks you see coming,and they have never hesitatedto dig furrows in a public square.They will mow you down like reapers. Listen, they say.We heard those same words muddied by loudspeakers,read the same headlines without believing what we read.This was in another country, another time.The crowded ships were sent backto where the only port was this gravesitethat you visit now and again. What trouble will you provoke, you who are not yet dead?What have you learned from our failures,and your own? [End Page 293] Susanna Lang Susanna Lang's new collection of poems, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was released in 2017. Earlier collections include Tracing the Lines and Even Now. A two-time Hambidge fellow and a recipient of the Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Bethesda Writer's Center, she has published in North American Review, Little Star, december, Prairie Schooner, Blue Lyra Review, Prime Number Magazine, and Poetry East. She lives in Chicago, where she teaches in the Chicago Public Schools. She can be reached at uttertheword@gmail.com. Copyright © 2018 Susanna Lang