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Woodland Pattern™    Book   Center Poetry Archive		Sue Blaustein Susan Blaustein grew up in New York and has lived in Wisconsin since 1974, moving from Madison to Milwaukee in 1979. Her work has appeared in the Wisconsin Academy Review and will appear in the Fall 2007 issue of Wisconsin People and Ideas. Poems have also appeared in the New Delta Review, Isotope - A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing and the anthology In My Neighborhood - Celebrating Wisconsin Cities. For her day job, Sue works as an inspector for the Milwaukee Health Department. She serves as president of her union local and as a volunteer organizer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

"Businessmen Drink My Wine, Plowmen Dig My Earth" Sue Blaustein

Tommy is a brown and black pit bull, brindled like hiking socks. He looks undifferentiated on his side, absorbing sun. Box headed and narrow eyed, he's reconciled as tortoises, draping his flamingo tongue loosely, like a tablecloth, between his teeth. He lives in the yard to my north and yawning refreshes him, even though he wakes in North Milwaukee. There's a pit to my south too— irritable, tan Missy, who snorts at softener steam from the dryer vent. She folds her articulate ears, stretches a tawny line of nipples—vain, but ridden by undercurrents of impotence and suffering. She should be the boss, but like this city under trifling leaders, Missy is thwarted and sour most of the time.

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