SIX HOURS OF DAYLIGHT
after Taylor Byas
I’ve brought this on myself. My butch swagger.
My thermal padded muscles. Why did I hold
all those doors for her? She drags me out of
bed, wraps my hand around the sharp tusk
of an animal I did not hunt. I heard a sound
outside, she whispers, shoving me toward
our deck view of Lake Salcha, where a pack
of slednecks saw her earlier, wearing nothing
but a winter scarf, cigarette hung between
ruby lips. I square my shoulders, pull back
the curtain. Aurora borealis performs her
usual show. The terror of my own breath
fogs the glass—surprise at this sudden
imposter, the reflection of my girlish face,
a stranger in this cabin.
*
SONNET FOR THE SIDE PLATE
Miss Katherine eats dinner from a side plate
to control portions. The men’s, large and filled
with potatoes, earth-dug by my bare hands.
Each day, the same, but smaller. I sow seeds,
collect eggs, nurture the soil. Once, I reached
for seconds of cornbread but Miss Katherine
sucked in her stomach, so I grabbed the salt.
Then, coffee for breakfast, Pabst Blue for lunch.
I feel myself shrinking out in the field
spreading mulch in southern heat. Miss Katherine
guts a catfish she won’t eat. Her son chops
off the head of a snake with his shovel,
we watch its thin body wriggle in dirt.
Now, my side plate, collard greens. I say grace.
*
Carson Wolfe (they/she) is a Mancunian poet and winner of New Writing North’s Debut Poetry Prize (2023). Their work has appeared or is forthcoming with Rattle, The Rumpus, The North, New Welsh Review, and Evergreen Review. They are an MFA student of Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and currently serve as a teaching assistant on the online writing course Poems That Don’t Suck. Carson lives in Manchester with their wife and three daughters. You can find them at carsonwolfe.co.uk.
