thitherward, there is a sound of frequent feet
Carrie Chappell
aforesaid, and said too, and yesterday said again. the accent creeps out
along the corners of the sky. skies do have corners. like my polite lips
like a page, the neighbors like fires in november. fires in november
are rude, they’ve said or sometimes i’ve thought they would say,
in this suburbbed hub. long days make good tornadoes. long sentences help me cut
up a page with their inconvenient bodies. think me shy or tell me
i’m reserved; i heard the nuance yesterday. there is a little bit of cruelty
in a mailbox. no more letters from the girl i wrote in third grade.
yolanda buried her awkwardness too. yolanda, that beautiful cow-lick must be
somewhere. somewhere i bet i could be
happy with a husband and kids though probably not in australia. there
they make fires in june. just how many things can offend a person?
just how many stamps did i put on that envelope? somewhere she walks
either remembering or not
remembering that i exist. i remember her chubby cheeks, a dimple. i remember her
letters and the phrases—schoolmate, buggered—
and though they were only alive on paper, i could hear all the methods of her tongue
pronouncing. tongues do have methods. there,
she must wonder where parts of her went. here, i tie the mornings back with coffee
or something quaint like i do declare’s. is it a premeditation?
is it precisely unconscious? i drawl open my mouth to say y’all, and all that comes
out is soil. soil does not come out.
Provenance: Submission
Carrie Chappell is originally from Birmingham, Alabama. Some of her recent poetry has appeared in CALAMITY, Cream City Review, Leveler, and Pittsburgh Poetry Review. She serves as Poetry Editor for Sundog Lit and runs Verse of April, a project she founded in 2015, every spring. Currently, she lives and writes in Paris, France.
Featured Image: “Dirt” by Zsolt Palatinus is licensed under Public Domain
No Comments