Tim Suermondt

It’s Only Fame

One of the first things I see in the village
is a side street named Rue Obscure,
a thin clump of cobblestones at best, but how
can I not pay homage and walk down it?
A group of writers appear right above
in the sky, writers who have been immortalized
by literature’s and the world’s memory.
I wave and mouth pleasantries, the one who
committed suicide waves back with vigor.
I exit the street to the square and its café
and its quite old church charming still. The writers
have disappeared and the blue sky rules again.
I head for the café, a part of me believing
this is home. What would I do in the sky, anyway?

Tim Suermondt’s seventh full-length book of poems A Day In The Republic came out in late 2025 from Dos Madres Press. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, Smartish Pace, Barrow Street, Amsterdam Review and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.