Carrie Etter
DREAMING OF THE DEAD
Indeed forlorn as forsaken in the brusque spring
the hoard of unspoken speech the weather of it
the quickening wind and distant bright
solitary solicitude some self-pity
some unfinished desires frayed threads
stroke one by one between thumb and forefinger
such texture under the slow touch
which is to say a vigor in memory an insistence
awry awake up now I go
DIVINING FOR STARTERS (88)
in the return’s first swathe
the air, its new coolness
cusping
and sound—distant
traffic and near
electric hum
feet finding
former paths, the blue
blue rug
so first, the place
returns to you as much as
you to it
then the lives, the
geranium’s new bright
bloom, the
cat in your wake
and later, someone to
share language
until which, the familiar
textures, the
lick of ease
DIVINING FOR STARTERS (89)
Sitting, condensing, as though yesterday, aloft, amid, in the people and the rain and the aisles
of chatter as though yesterday the cells of my body in suspension or expanded, air
rushing through as I gabbed and hugged and grinned so today, alone again a kind of
coalescence in flesh to listen to what can be discerned in the near-silent my
neighbour’s television, my now noisy my own breath
Indeed forlorn as forsaken in the brusque spring
the hoard of unspoken speech the weather of it
the quickening wind and distant bright
solitary solicitude some self-pity
some unfinished desires frayed threads
stroke one by one between thumb and forefinger
such texture under the slow touch
which is to say a vigor in memory an insistence
awry awake up now I go
DIVINING FOR STARTERS (88)
in the return’s first swathe
the air, its new coolness
cusping
and sound—distant
traffic and near
electric hum
feet finding
former paths, the blue
blue rug
so first, the place
returns to you as much as
you to it
then the lives, the
geranium’s new bright
bloom, the
cat in your wake
and later, someone to
share language
until which, the familiar
textures, the
lick of ease
DIVINING FOR STARTERS (89)
Sitting, condensing, as though yesterday, aloft, amid, in the people and the rain and the aisles
of chatter as though yesterday the cells of my body in suspension or expanded, air
rushing through as I gabbed and hugged and grinned so today, alone again a kind of
coalescence in flesh to listen to what can be discerned in the near-silent my
neighbour’s television, my now noisy my own breath
Copyright © Carrie Etter 2019
Carrie Etter's latest collection is The Weather in Normal (UK: Seren; US: Station Hill, 2018). Originally from Normal, Illinois, she has lived in England since 2001 and is Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, where she has taught since 2004. She has made appearances in Molly Bloom 2, 7 and 15.
