The Gnome in My Den

I can't really tell anyone the
truth of the five inch gnome
who moves ever so slightly
almost every night while we
sleep

only my husband and I
know he goes from looking
at us to facing the door to
looking out the window

he moves in
three different directions

of course we've never seen
him while he was moving
that would be absurd and
people would think we were
not right in the head so we
haven’t told anyone except
you and maybe we should
find a Scandinavian specialist
in this matter who can assure
us this is really happening and
maybe we should get some
kind of affidavit that we can
hang on the wall to verify
such an occurrence or maybe
we should just keep it to
ourselves

don't tell anyone okay

back to issue

Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who was raised in New York City, and is now living in a forest in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Since she has returned to writing poetry this year, her poems have been accepted in a few dozen publications, including Across the Margin, Ekstasis, Vita Poetica, Feminine Collective, Persimmon Tree Literary Magazine, Military Experience and the Arts, and the Avalon Literary Review, as well as three anthologies.