A Hunger
Always at a basic cusp,
suchlight of water and iron:
you remove a frail spike
and count to ten while walking through poor
neighborhoods. Here you are,
another day, lying next to him—
naked—in a big, brass twin bed.
What’s funny is he
hurt you before you could
say your peace. You remove a spike
from his back and eat a peach.
What’s forgiveness when
a perfect day would be opposed
to this antithe-
sis to this, sis. You are my sis.
There will be no blue wedding,
but you will borrow your
confession from a textbook.
You forgive him,
but this is so tenuous.
How to Remove an Iron from a New Tongue
By someone’s undoing, you
eviscerate design.
You’re not saying
is a way to
say what
capital would have you say.
But, you see, you’re empty.
Oftentimes a social field
brings with it a set of
new sponges to soak in.
But where are
your eyes, and where are your deeper ear holes?
You plant insignia.
Here is what you should do:
tell it it is a very good
painting, a best one, in truth.
You tell
Spinoza that you’d like to be taken back to where
there is no paraphernalia or
golden knowledge, as a world might say.
Then you erase all of those rough edges.
Then you build interior,
known for its depth.
In a nothing
sound reverberates only it’s lighter.
Laura Carter lives in Atlanta, Georgia.