Black-eyed Susan, Madam

Madam Black-eyed Susan grew up on a plantation in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the daughter of the German physician and explorer, Ric Underwood, who named the plantation Hirta after his wife, Violetta Hirta (a member of the sunflower tribe), and by extension, the well known Rudbekia River. When her father first discovered the farm, it was flooded with wild flowers. Distraught by the marriage of her eldest sister to her own true love, Black-eyed Susan left Hirta to find her own life in Chicago. There, she tasted a rotten apple—a sweet, rotten-candy treat. (Try a bite for yourself. It might just kill you.) Who gave it to her? A doctor who skims the outskirts of the socialites, a handsome man who looks a lot like her father; he handed her the glass, a bitter red wine and they have been close ever since. You might seek her. You might find her. You probably won’t. She is certain to offer you something if you do. It might just kill you.

Influences: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lorca, Poe, Anne Carson, Francesca Lia Block, booze