The pawn moves in inaccurate circles.

This time it’s not about the ear; this time it’s

the sound of the woodlot falling in the temple.


We read our radiators in one room.

I was lifting up my dress; you were lifting up

the irascibility at the end of time.


That end drew too near one early morning.

I feathered it and ate its bugs at the circus.

I became the house into which I took my friendships.


Mid-morning it is all about diamonds.

There’s a move on the other side of now.

There’s not really an other side in here.


What I left at the ballot box was my own face.

Today I am wearing a pretty shirt.


by laura carter

Laura Carter lives in Atlanta, Georgia.