Susan Rothbard

Susan Rothbard's poetry has appeared in the Literary Review, Poet Lore, Pif Magazine, the Paterson Literary Review, the National Poetry Review, and other journals. Her work has been featured in Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry” and on Verse Daily, and she won the 2011 Finch Prize for Poetry. 

That New

At the market today, I look for Piñata

apples, their soft-blush-yellow. My husband

brought them home last week, made me guess at

the name of this new strain, held one in his hand

like a gift and laughed as I tried all 

the names I knew: Gala, Fuji, Honey

Crisp--watched his face for clues--what to call

something new? It's winter, only tawny

hues and frozen ground, but that apple bride

was sweet, and I want to bring it back to him,

that new. When he cut it, the star inside

held seeds of other stars, the way within

a life are all the lives you might live,

each unnamed, until you name it.

— Susan Rothbard