Suzanne Ondrus

DIESE ZEIT

Tucked in fright
by Father tonight.

Tucked in tight,
with Mutti out of sight.

Slowly, softly, we recite
a prayer to see daylight.

See, Vati was locked out despite
the cold October night,

so he broke the door with his might
and suddenly was in our sight.

Mutti in bed bolted upright.
They began to curse and fight.

She was not contrite.
Vati went out for the knife

and took it to his wife.
Up, down, left and right,

from mouth to ear he sliced,
and the back of her head he diced.

Blood jumped under the moonlight.
Blood jumped past his height.

Soon Mutti had no fight, no might.
She wasn’t alright.

Her face was too white.

And she became still, so still,
like she was sleeping tight

but with her eyes forever wide affright,
and then we knew Vati had killed her diese Zeit.


Suzanne's YouTube video reading of "Diese Zeit":



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Suzanne confesses: "This poem was inspired by the child's prayer 'Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep'. I was haunted by the fact that the Bach children witnessed their German Ohio immigrant father murder their mother at bedtime in 1881 and then were put to sleep by him after the murder."

SUZANNE ONDRUS' first book, Passion Seeds, won the 2013 Vernice Quebodeaux Prize. She was Gordon Square Review’s 2022 runner up winner for prose, the 2013 Reed Magazine Markham Poetry Prize winner, a 2017 featured UNESCO World Book Capital poet in Guinea, Conakry, and a 2018-2020 Fulbright Scholar to Burkina Faso. Her work delves into love, desire, different cultures, history, racism, body image, African fashion, and women’s sexuality. Her forthcoming poetry book, Death of an Unvirtuous Woman (Finishing Line Press) from which these poems come, examines domestic violence and homicide in an 1881 Ohio German immigrant couple from Wood County. Hear her read on her YouTube channel Suzanne Ondrus and find her updates on suzanneondrus.com.