Poetry by Susan Barry-Schulz

            Jo Guldi CC



​
when my imaginary therapist asks me how I’m feeling

I say mostly just disappointed           in baseball players who banged
on trash can lids         in neighbors for using so much fertilizer            in the blue-green algae
blooming in the lake         in the way my body is spreading out in all directions              in the way
that marriages can sometimes end not happily ever after      in the way that surgeons minimize
after effects          in the way doctors don’t believe women        in how insurance works       in the
way that multiple people keep calling my mother claiming to be her grandson in urgent need of
money          in the way they wait for her to guess his name         in the way that someone stole all
the mailman’s Christmas tips          in how everyone bought the books but no one read them        in
how all those red flags are still flying on the streets of this old town           in how more than 70
million people how           I need you to look me in the eye and explain it to me




The Physical Properties of Some Milk Chocolate Candies

I want to tell you something about m&ms
not just where they melt and where they don’t, 
but other things like how much space they take 
up on my tongue. Or how much time it takes 
to finish off one family size bag 
in a pandemic. Lately it seems like 
so many things surrounding me are all
a scam. Insurance, passwords, teeth cleanings 
at the dentist. How many times can one man 
win the state of Georgia?  I admit sometimes 
they change their colors depending on the 
season, but believe me m&ms will never 
leave you empty handed. Honestly, we were 
never that great to begin with.
​

Susan Barry-Schulz is a licensed Physical Therapist. Her poetry has appeared in The Wild Word, SWWIM, Shooter Literary Magazine, Barrelhouse online, South Florida Poetry Journal, The New Verse News, Panoply, Bending Genres and elsewhere. She grew up outside of Buffalo and now lives in a lake neighborhood in Putnam County, NY with her husband and one or more of her 3 adult children. It all depends. 

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