Laura Carter lives in Atlanta, where she teaches and drives Uber for a living. Her previous chapbooks have been published by Dancing Girl, Greying Ghost, Ungovernable, Grey/Wildilfe, WonderRoot/Loose Change, and ShirtPocket.
Very Fine Was the Last of the Valentines
And then I just don’t know where,
or how, everything happened.
Listen: spokes
turn as
a beginning feels like what you wanted or
what you didn’t want besides the cloud.
Her book was all about what the sky
really did look like:
beautiful, untamed, something new.
All I have is my lack of a tremolo,
my lack of ordinary cellos.
My last valentine was written for you.
It was almost like autumn.
It was almost like September,
a coral clasp of something hiding.
But I am not worried.
Somewhere, people fear skies
because they are made of old water.
There are times I count myself among
the one who cannot go back to that ocean of
analogy, where a woman makes what
peace she can with the wrong thing, old criminals,
a sad wish.