There's a book on your bed
I'd like to be— be— be— be— be—
Donnez-moi a lick and a promise
Donnez-moi an umbrella you stole
Donnez-moi a new way of wishing
and I'll donnez-vous a place in my soul
Donnez-moi your silliest story
Donnez-moi your sharpest knife
Donnez-moi a new way of wishing
and I'll donnez-vous a place in my life
SUZY GETS OUT
Suzy's told to keep appointments.
Suzy's told, "Depression kills."
Suzy's told to keep good records.
Suzy's told to take her pills.
Suzy leaves the patient kitchen
with its plastic daffodils.
Jim has done some extra reading.
Zeus, he tells her, might be Dutch.
Zeus says thanks for care and feeding.
Jim says meds are not a crutch.
Jim tells Suzy keep on truckin'.
Jim tells Suzy keep in touch.
Suzy's tired in the taxi.
Suzy thinks about her bed.
Lithium's a heavy metal.
Suzy's arms and legs are lead.
SUZY GETS HOME
Sitting on the bathtub's edge. She's
here. She's her. She's back. She's out.
Fingering the splitting caulk, the
bathtub ring, the dirty grout.
Suzy's broken like a teapot—
cracked and glued but lost its spout.
Suzy wipes the messed-up mirror.
There she is: a second Eve.
Maybe just a little smarter.
Wonders what she might achieve.
Wonders if she has more bath salts.
Wonders, what does she believe?
Blessed is she if she's crying?
Blessed is she if she's poor?
Blessed if she's hungry? Like her
floating soap, she's not quite pure.
Healing doesn't sound so finished.
God should grant an all-out cure.
Thank the Lord there's more hot water.
And her toes. She has all ten.
Suzy uses purple polish.
Has since grade school. Way back then.
Thinks about the Crucifixion
and the cruelty of men.
SUZY GETS SURPRISED
Suzy starts to read the paper.
Spends a lot of time in bed.
Rises slowly in the shadows,
kind of like a loaf of bread.
Suzy does some finger painting—
lots of blue with bits of red.
Suzy lies upon her sofa,
Suzy lies beside the phone.
Sometimes Suzy Zeus lies supine,
sometimes Suzy Zeus lies prone.
When it rings, it isn't William.
More like from the Twilight Zone.
Having saved the "Father Wanted"
from an ancient New York Press,
Bitterino, on a pay phone—
sounded like a total mess.
Suzy said to come and see her.
Said it was the same address.
SUZY GETS A RINSE
Suzy Zeus poured Bit some coffee.
Bit was looking awful low.
Like she had no pal to turn to,
like she had no place to go.
Needed food and needed friendship,
needed sleep and needed dough.
Bit wants change and wants it pronto.
Understanding's not enough.
What good's seeing what's repeating,
knowing it's the same old stuff?
Bit was tired, sad, and angry,
looking inward, looking tough.
Suzy has a long, long hallway.
Suzy has a rocking chair.
Still hears Harry where he isn't
(like, his footstep on the stair).
Bitterino brought her brushes.
Spent three days on Suzy's hair.
SUZY GETS GOING
Suzy's sleeping. Suzy's cooking.
Olive oil and lemon zest.
In the mirror Suzy's looking
at a friend from back out West.
Suzy's better.
Time to put her
higher powers to the test.
Suzy wants her line to God back.
Suzy wants to feel awake.
Suzy wants to feel a world that
isn't brave and new and fake.
Suzy ponders in her heart—can't
she control a manic break?
Suzy took her meds on Tuesday,
half on Wednesday, none today.
Suzy's mind is quicker now. To
take your pills and then to pray?
Stuffing earplugs in your ears. She
wants to hear what God will say.
SUZY GETS THE PICTURE
Father Robert preaches welcome,
action, risk, and ruthless love.
As she wanders, Suzy wonders
if it's this he's thinking of.
Suzy's lashed her soul to Him: the
talons on the Holy Dove.
Suzy nears the midnight Hudson,
where her pills will meet their fate.
Look—St. Jude's is full of candles.
Boy, St. Jude's is open late.
No one's shut the wooden doors, and
no one's closed the iron gate.
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
Of the mighty conflict sing ...
Voices waft from all the windows.
In the yard the smell of spring.
Tell the triumph— Suzy enters.
Not much light . . . thy tribute bring.
Rank on rank the congregation's
squeezed in tight beneath the dome.
This is like those crowds of tourists
visiting the Pope in Rome.
Then the hymn dissolves in silence.
Few by few the folks head home.
Everybody's very quiet.
No one laughs, or breathes a word.
Maybe she can ask on Sunday
what it was, the hymn she heard.
Suzy knows the people leaving.
Yes, she knows at least a third.
Dana's there, with Sam and Michael.
Lee is walking out with Tim.
Rachel must have had the baby . . .
Hard to tell—the light's so dim.
William's boyfriend looks exhausted.
Steven's with the other Jim.
Toward the back, inside the chapel,
stands a special silver urn.
Burlap covers all the pictures.
Watchers watch the candles burn.
Could this be her mission starting?
Will her brain begin to churn?
People kneel, or sit, in silence.
Suzy wonders what they hear.
If they're hearing. Suzy wonders
if this happens every year.
God is there, but saying nothing.
Maybe not quite there, but near.
In the dripping of the candles
Suzy doesn't hear a call.
Suzy doesn't see a vision
in the wood grain on the wall.
Please don't let her task be small-time.
Please don't let her task be small.
Suzy prays to get directions.
Suzy prays to get a sign.
Suzy prays for more support: a
tougher shell, a stronger spine.
Suzy wants to battle evil—
things like war, and Columbine.
Then a wreck, a skinny neck, his
eyes a tangle, hair the same.
Suzy knows she knows those eyes, and
then she knows she knows his name.
Charlie, dressed to look dramatic.
Charlie looking pretty lame.
Trying hard to seem like lightning—
wanting silver, getting gray.
Jesus empty, not so frightening,
halfway through a Passion play.
Charlie's eyes are grasping fingers.
Suzy shrugs and looks away.
Suzy thinks of plastic stainless.
Who you are is where you've been.
Who you are is where you're going.
Maybe it's what shape you're in.
Maybe it's who's coming with you.
Are its edges at your skin?
Great. She's not just home but grounded.
Plus her homework may be dull.
Volunteering, at the church. Her
meds at work inside her skull.
It's no dove, the Holy Spirit.
Just a squawking common gull.
God may speak, but just to prophets.
Saints may, too, but just to Joan.
Suzy's not an island, but she
wanted so to work alone.
Suzy whacks the iron railings.
Suzy kicks the cornerstone.
SUZY GETS CURIOUS
Suzy reads the Dalai Lama.
Harry and the rest, go hang.
Suzy doesn't need more drama—
she's eschewing Sturm und Drang.
Robert says the world's not ending,
with a whimper or a bang.
March is Bitterino's birthday.
Suzy gets her ankle socks.
Tries to bake a flower cake the
shape of Bitter's favorite, phlox.
Devil's food with purple frosting—
pretty good for from a box.
John the Baptist baptized Jesus—
how can Jesus be a Jew?
Suzy can't fold down the kneeler.
Where's the goddamn pivot screw?
Should they sit? Will God be angry?
Move to someone else's pew?
Bitterino weighs the weight that
Suzy thinks is good to weigh.
Bit says Suzy's measurements are
absolutely quite okay.
Last night Suzy wondered if her
pubic hair would all go gray.
SUZY GETS READY
Signing up for singing classes.
Suzy's teacher's name is Nat.
Nat King Cole sang jazz like crazy.
Suzy wants to learn to scat
just like Ella (was it Billie?)—
first she's got to not be flat.
Suzy's going to train for choir
plus take lessons on her own.
Learn to breathe and count in quarters,
study Mozart, tune, and tone,
Gerald Near and all the Bach boys,
Calvin Hampton, chant, and drone.
SUZY GETS SOME FRIENDS
Suzy Zeus decides she'll try a
quiet pet, a pet that's calm.
Takes a single sleek, fat kitty
from the nearby yoga dham.
But her single, long-haired feline
soon becomes a single mom.
Suzy names the kittens Xanax,
Depakote, Alprazolam,
Paxil, Prozac, Turns, and Zoloft,
and she doesn't give a damn
that her shrinkie finds it "flippant."
He can turn his tail and scram.
Suzy lies there, late at night—the
kittens purr her favorite song.
Sleepy, Suzy slumps with all eight
feline friends to watch King Kong.
Suzy's in the dark about what
pals their mom has brought along.
Fleas like beds, and fleas like sofas,
underneath and up on top.
Suzy cannot use a swatter—
fleas don't fly so much as hop.
Suzy grabs the yoga mama,
crying, "No, this hell must stop!"
Suzy fogs, but still has insects.
Suzy fogs, and fogs times three.
Dizzy from the fumes she nearly
weeps when something bites her knee.
Mist and spray and powder follow.
Now, thank God, she's insect-free.
Suzy names the next ones Yahweh,
Adonai, and Elohim,
Jesus, God, and Holy Spirit,
El and Ba'al. In a dream,
all the kittens worship Suzy
every time she pours them cream.
SUZY GETS TO CONEY ISLAND
Bit is feeding Suzy grapefruit,
cantaloupe, and eggs on toast.
Suzy's eaten men for breakfast.
Suzy Zeus liked Brad the most.
Suzy likes to pedal downhill,
still not satisfied to coast.
Being bound's the only way, the
rector says, of being free.
More in Heaven, more on Earth, than
dreamt in your philosophy.
As she cycles, Suzy chooses
flat for distance. Helps her see.
Suzy can be strong and silent.
Suzy can be loud and weak.
Suzy's filling, Suzy's spilling,
Suzy's learning how to speak.
Suzy's falling like a sparrow—
grass and grammar in her beak.
Ocean Parkway . . . ocean breezes . . .
union with the bike she's on . . .
red light . . . green light . . . Holy, Holy . . .
Matt and Mark . . . and Luke and John . . .
Suzy checks the tomb and sighs. He's
just another guy who's gone.
Suzy's mind is slowly mending—
brains are, after all, just meat.
Knees and ankles . . . Rhythmic bending
powers Suzy down the street.
Wonder Wheel. The journey's ending.
Suzy on her own two feet.
To her left, the Russian third-hand
thrift stores, where she wants to shop.
Straight ahead, that turning tower.
To her right, the rusted drop.
Someone died there, long ago, when
fun in free-fall didn't stop.
Suzy waits below the capsule
as it slowly rotates down,
buys a ticket, steps aboard, ascends.
Manhattan's air is brown.
She can see the Chrysler Building.
She can see the whole damn town.
Suze revolves to face the ocean,
watches water swell and toss.
Thinks of her aborted mission.
Feels the power. Feels the loss.
Wonders, with enough confession
could she ever walk across?
T-shaped pier and wooden boardwalk.
Crabbers crab without a sound.
Suzy's level with the rusty
skeleton. She turns around.
Upturned faces near as she returns
to dusty, solid ground.
Suzy Zeus is making phone calls,
first to Jesus, then to Freud.
Suzy's writing invitations,
shouting questions at the void.
Suzy wonders where they are now—
all the men that she's enjoyed.
Suzy's singing on the mountain.
Suzy's silent in the mine.
Suzy's humming, making hash—and
pickles with her tears for brine.
Asking God to come for dinner.
Asking God to bring the wine.
Acknowledgments
This book owes its existence to Andrew Solomon, Suzy's oldest flame, biggest fan, and most exacting redactor. My gratitude to him knows no bounds. For their insight and support, I am greatly indebted also to Jeanne McCulloch, my editor; Jeff Posternak, my agent; and Christopher Ashley, Sarah Banks, Tom Beckett, Jude Biersdorfer, Tom Breidenthal, Christian Caryl, Max Cavitch, Dana Cowin, Robin Desser, Jennie Dunham, Ruth Ferguson, Roger Ferlo, Deborah Garrison, Robert Gottlieb, Anne Harlan, Liz Harlan-Ferlo, John Hart, Carol Henderson, Cheryl Henson, Elissa Lane, David Rakoff, Anne Richar
ds, Pat, Rex, Tim, and Tory Robbins, Martijn Schot, Margaret Schultz, Amy Schwartz, David Shuler, Polly Shulman, Lucy and Priscilla Smith, Jim Standard, Tim Vasen, Greg Villepique, Howard Waldman, Mary Ellen Ward, Pete Wells, Susan Wheeler, Susan Wojtasik, and especially Joan Keener and Jaime Wolf. My final thanks go to Clay Shirky, for introducing me to Suzy in the first place.
A Note on the Author
Maggie Robbins is a psychotherapist living and working in New York City. With composer Robert Maggio, she wrote the libretto for the opera Hearing Voices: Joan of Arc at the Stake, which was performed at Pennsylvania's West Chester University. Her collages and assemblages have been shown from SoHo to Alberta and included in such books as M. G. Lord's Forever Barbie: The History of a Real Doll. She is fluent in Swahili. This is her first book.
A Note on the Type
Linotype Garamond Three is based on seventeenth-century copies of Claude Garamond's types, cut by Jean Jannon. This version was designed for American Type Founders in 1917 by Morris Fuller Benton and Thomas Maitland Cleland, and adapted for mechanical composition by Linotype in 1936.
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