Poetry Magazine, Sara Carter, March 2001

Poetry Magazine

Sara Carter

USA

Letter To My Ghost

You're somewhere
floating in my room
glowing indigo in a corner
while my back is turned,
breathing cold
on the back of my neck
I think is a window draft
while I type you now,
head half-cocked
(if you even have a head)
interest perked after
seeing this addressed to you
because I'm too chicken
to prop a pillow
and ask you to sit
like she told me
to prove you're there.
Still I'd rather just say you are
instead of seeing you,
but I'm curious
how long you've been with me
watching me undress
every night,
seeing me cry at the edge of my bed
when there was no one around
(at least I thought),
pass out drunk on the cold,
ceramic toilet seat
because it was Valentine's Day
and he was ten hours away,
how you must have shook your head
in disappointment
while you stroked my hair to sleep
and made me forget.

The Lady Is A Tramp

And I wonder what type of shoe
she and her fifty
fatherless children live in.
A steamy sneaker
with walls saturated with
old sweat sock droplets?
A boot the most logical residence
for such a large family,
its leather protective exterior
spacious height and
lace security system.
Or probably
a patent leather
red stiletto
heel house on the hill
for Miss Oldelia Woman where

Home Feet Home
cross stitched in a frame
hangs crooked
as she re-magic markers
the fading numbers
on the children's foreheads
Odd number boys
Even number girls
Names too damn
hard to remember
after a breakfast omelet and
three screwdrivers.

Screams of numbers followed
by children's cries
make neighbors think
Oldelia founded a new
form of discipline
using arithmetic and loud volume
when only scolding
Twenty-Four and Thirty
for refrigerating
unknown Blue liquid
in a margarine container
(later discovered Downy and milk),
Eight for using toothpaste
to repair a lost tooth,
Forty-one and Thirty-Seven
for coating Ten's
face in strawberry chapstick,
Twenty for calling
long distance to the
neighbor's house,
and Thirty-Nine for burying
Twenty-One's G.I.Joe figures
in the cat¹s litter box.

Through a chorus of tantrums
Old Blue Eyes spins as she
shuffles around the shoe
in her house-shaped slippers
and counts her pennies for
the other stiletto
to make a pair
and sets one copper dream
aside
for him
to sing to her.

Bohemian Basement

Empty boxes good for
storing knick-knacks,
knick-knacks good
for gathering dust
behind my grandma’s basement door,
chain locked to prevent
neighborhood burglars
from sneaking up the Chicago
bungalow stairwell,
trapping them in the
orange and yellow walled room
like a lightning bug
in an old glass pimento spread jar
she saves in case someone
needs to store pennies for wishes
or used confetti for a birthday party.

Garage sale kangaroo
salt and pepper shakers,
chipped ceramic bellies
still filled with spice
from the previous owner
because salt never goes stale.

Bars of one-cent Lux soap
invented before lather
now used as bug repellent
(like her mother taught her)
for a pile of 1968 National Geographic
featuring animals now endangered
(a sure hot sell on eBay).

Orphaned Monopoly pieces
and straggling playing cards
(in case someone loses
an ace of spades or silver game thimble),
broken rubber bands still usable
tied with other snapped rubber bands
time-capsuled in oozing drawers of junk.

A coconut-carved head
Pa hung on a shelf with electrical wire
(as he does most everything),
gray feather hair and seashell eyes,
gaping mouth lined with pebble teeth
breathing eerie voodoo vibes,
a 1964 Jamaican vacation souvenir.

Two black velvet paintings of clowns
with following eyes
I avoided passing as a child
and will never remove
from the pumpkin wall
in fear of what I’d find behind.

An ivory statue resembling Pa
his motto "Sue the Bastards"
engraved on the base
beside a broken alarm clock
he planned to fix
but can’t remember
where the hell she put it or
who she even is.

Breathing Lessons

Each finger spread across
walrus teeth and licorice sticks
not quite to reach an octave at six years old
so I cheat and knock off the bottom note
(x-ed in number two graphite only),
some with flags, others with poles
polka dots with full and half-empty bellies
like tiny spiders hanging
by a furry leg on web threads
I hope will blow away
with each gust of her notorious nostril wind
she uses as a metronome

One and uh Two and uh (shwoosh - - shwoosh)

No "Move, please" or "Scoot over"
a quick hip swing to bump me aside,
eyes closed imagining Carnegie,
orbitally swaying in music-induced catatonia,
fingers melodramatically interpreting
Michael Jackson's Thriller (big note version),
forgetting my tiny body and sprawled legs
grappled on four inches
of bench space beside her ass,
white-knuckled in forced momentum to keep balance and goose-bumped beneath
her downward draft.

Curled on a nearby couch cushion
Abby appears lost in her thirty-fourth nap for today,
her pink-pointed ears helplessly twitching in rhythm,
ear drums drumming her awake
to Miss Jackie's beats and pounding chords
now rattling the piano lamp¹s bulb and innards
leaving green and blue spots in my eyes
from staring at them dancing.

After grand finale of full chords and echoed pedals,
I resume my count of threads and spiders
now more difficult mixed with colorful dots
still painted on my inner lids as I recite
Every Good Boy Does Fine
in growing anger it isn't
Every Good Girl Does Fine
which would ultimately change everything.