Sally Weston Ziph

SUSAN SMITH'S DREAM

The blue van rises
from the bottom of the lake

tilts on its side and floats
back to the dock. Water pours

out of its windows, forming
pockets of air that release the screams

of her small sons strapped
into car seats. Walking backward,

she turns to see the van heave
itself up onto the dock’s edge,

rolling toward her, slowly,
backwards, water

smoothing into surface,
under the moon’s white eye.


Sally's YouTube video reading of "Susan Smith's Dream":



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Sally confesses: "I remember hearing about the Susan Smith case in the summer of 1994 after reading Joyce Carol Oates' Chappaquiddick book, Black Water. That book really made me think about the horror of death by drowning, and the fact that Susan Smith drowned her two baby sons (and blamed it on a non-existent Black bogey-man), all because she wanted to get together with the town's rich boy, is truly the stuff of nightmares."

SALLY WESTON ZIPH's poems and short stories have appeared in The Five-Two, Bear River Review, Third Wednesday, Rat's Ass Review, and others. She is a University of Michigan Hopwood Award winner, and recently received her MFA degree from Miami University's low-res program, where she was a first runner up for the 2020 Miami American Academy of Poets Prize judged by poet Stephanie Young. She works as a librarian at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Sally Weston Ziph

KIM WALL SPEAKS

You thought they'd never find me
that I was fish food, just bones,
no flesh to tell the tale, the truth.

You black-smithed metals
into a tin can sub, tricked me
dropped the lid, and I went under

down to Hell. You strapped me in
used all the tools in your black box,
and no one heard me scream.

O fear the Siren’s silence,
when they found me on the beach
my flesh, stab wounds

and bruises sang—
your tale held no water,
your knives and pipes, your lies,

they drowned you out,
Mad Madsen, psycho-killer,
your fish tale horrified.

Now you're locked up in shackles,
so how do you like me now?
You're swimming with the sharks, don't scream—
they're eating you alive.


Sally reads "Kim Wall Speaks":



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Sally confesses: "Kim Wall was an amazing Swedish journalist and young woman who fell into the clutches of a Danish madman while trying to interview him about his amateur submarine in 2017. This crime horrified me, because I could see how she could walk into this trap as a journalist, when other women (non-journalists) had already pegged him as a major creep. My two daughters are now thirty, the same age Kim Wall was when she was murdered, and this crime reminded me that no matter what you warn them about, you can never foresee every bizarre and horrible possibility out there. This poem is for Kim Wall and all the women journalists who continue to venture out into the world, pursuing stories and dreams despite the dangers."

SALLY WESTON ZIPH a librarian at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. She has recently had poems published in Third Wednesday, Open Palm Print, and the Rat's Ass Review.