Sunday afternoon by Christine Potter

January 24, 2026 ~ ONE ART ~ 1 Comment

Sunday afternoon

Sometimes, when you get what you want, you
find yourself ready for sleep at 4 PM, sated

on the candy of recognition and praise, too
full of everything to even think about supper.

But it’s also like being a ghost, frayed, grayed
out, about to disappear. The air is heavy with

maybe-rain and early winter smells oddly like
spring. Just go take a nap, my husband says.

But I’m hoarding that desire. I like wanting
something that’s not quite here yet, maybe

the weird, lucid dreams I’m trying to hold
off. The floral scent of rotting maple leaves.

How lonely I still get for no real reason. The
sabbath. This wide, white, impossible sky.

Christine Potter is the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine. Her poems have been curated there, in ONE ART, as well as in Rattle, The McNeese Review, Glimpse, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The After Happy Hour Review, Silly Goose Press, and other literary magazines. She is the author of the full-length collections Unforgetting and the forthcoming Why I Don’t Take Xanax® (Kelsay books)–as well as the chapbook Before the World Was on Fire (Bottlecap Press). Her time-traveling young adult novel series, The Bean Books, is on Evernight Teen.

Jimmy Carter Brought to the Capitol to Lie In State by Christine Potter

January 29, 2025January 29, 2025 ~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

Jimmy Carter Brought to the Capitol to Lie In State

Wind yesterday, wind again today, strong enough to rock
the thick, shaggy trunks of cedars. Dead leaves and bits of

paper rise in what sounds like surf—but no water. Sky’s a
mean blue beyond the jangled, empty maples. Too bright

and cold. Cold wind. Shuffle-click of military shoes, body-
bearers strapping the President’s casket covered with our

flag to a black caisson. The horses’ black necks curled like
question marks in the white sun. Someone gravel-voiced

huffing orders. More wind. Hoof-clatter, columns, stone
steps, a distant siren, an almost recognizable word caught

in the air, held aloft until it’s gone. One horse, riderless,
waving its head. The first President I had been old enough

to vote for. His voice on the old-even-then black and white
TV I’d repaired by replacing tubes. His serious Oval Office

camera-gaze, our sweet old world: blurry, glimmering. We
paid for things with coins. We didn’t want war but hadn’t

won one recently. My father was out of work. Me, too. Dad
and I drove to Unemployment together. Dad still liked him;

a President is a seat at the dinner table. How could we know
the future and how distant it never was? The year I was born,

Jimmy Carter entered a melting-down nuclear reactor and
repaired it, absorbing an entire year’s worth of radiation in

ninety seconds. He lived a century. Everything you’d never
imagine happened. I never thought I’d cry for two whole days.

*

Christine Potter is the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine. Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Rattle Poets Respond, Eclectica, ONE ART, Tar River Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The McNeese Review, Grain, and Consequence. Her full-length poetry collection, Unforgetting, is published by Kelsay Books and her time traveling young adult novels, The Bean Books, are on Evernight Teen. She lives in a very old house in the Hudson Valley with her husband and a chonky cat named Bella.

The Feast Of Busby Berkeley by Christine Potter

January 29, 2024 ~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

The Feast Of Busby Berkeley

Big holidays are often because of things
that weren’t the disaster you’d imagine—
often events you wouldn’t even notice

if you weren’t paying attention: lots of
oil, a state execution foiled, death taking
its unfixable thievery elsewhere. The old

friend released from the hospital, the
Aurora showing its dragon-green dance
to a solitary teacher driving the reservoir

causeway on her way to school just before
dawn, radio in her car untouched by any
solar storm. And this black and white

movie: ninety years old, three hundred
showgirls camped overnight in an arena-
sized rehearsal hall, learning a new routine,

each of them equipped with a negligee,
swimsuit, and waterproof makeup: every bit
as crazy a story as you getting to watch it

now and stop mourning the news. You did,
too, after clicking a single button thrice.
Later you stepped out on the porch into air

deep with frost and midnight, taken by a
hilarious delirium. Everything hushed, the
creek shuffling water. So. Why not believe?

Christine Potter’s poetry has been curated by Rattle, Kestrel, Third Wednesday, Thimble, Eclectica, The Midwest Quarterly, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily—and featured by ABC Radio News. She has work forthcoming in The McNeese Review. Her young adult novels, The Bean Books, are published by Evernight Teen, and her third full-length collection of poetry, Unforgetting, by Kelsay Books.

Tag: Christine Potter

Sunday afternoon by Christine Potter

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Jimmy Carter Brought to the Capitol to Lie In State by Christine Potter

Jimmy Carter Brought to the Capitol to Lie In State

Wind yesterday, wind again today, strong enough to rock
the thick, shaggy trunks of cedars. Dead leaves and bits of

paper rise in what sounds like surf—but no water. Sky’s a
mean blue beyond the jangled, empty maples. Too bright

and cold. Cold wind. Shuffle-click of military shoes, body-
bearers strapping the President’s casket covered with our

flag to a black caisson. The horses’ black necks curled like
question marks in the white sun. Someone gravel-voiced

huffing orders. More wind. Hoof-clatter, columns, stone
steps, a distant siren, an almost recognizable word caught

in the air, held aloft until it’s gone. One horse, riderless,
waving its head. The first President I had been old enough

to vote for. His voice on the old-even-then black and white
TV I’d repaired by replacing tubes. His serious Oval Office

camera-gaze, our sweet old world: blurry, glimmering. We
paid for things with coins. We didn’t want war but hadn’t

won one recently. My father was out of work. Me, too. Dad
and I drove to Unemployment together. Dad still liked him;

a President is a seat at the dinner table. How could we know
the future and how distant it never was? The year I was born,

Jimmy Carter entered a melting-down nuclear reactor and
repaired it, absorbing an entire year’s worth of radiation in

ninety seconds. He lived a century. Everything you’d never
imagine happened. I never thought I’d cry for two whole days.

*

Like this:

The Feast Of Busby Berkeley by Christine Potter

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Like this:

Jimmy Carter Brought to the Capitol to Lie In State

Wind yesterday, wind again today, strong enough to rock the thick, shaggy trunks of cedars. Dead leaves and bits of

paper rise in what sounds like surf—but no water. Sky’s a mean blue beyond the jangled, empty maples. Too bright

and cold. Cold wind. Shuffle-click of military shoes, body- bearers strapping the President’s casket covered with our

flag to a black caisson. The horses’ black necks curled like question marks in the white sun. Someone gravel-voiced

huffing orders. More wind. Hoof-clatter, columns, stone steps, a distant siren, an almost recognizable word caught

in the air, held aloft until it’s gone. One horse, riderless, waving its head. The first President I had been old enough

to vote for. His voice on the old-even-then black and white TV I’d repaired by replacing tubes. His serious Oval Office

camera-gaze, our sweet old world: blurry, glimmering. We paid for things with coins. We didn’t want war but hadn’t

won one recently. My father was out of work. Me, too. Dad and I drove to Unemployment together. Dad still liked him;

a President is a seat at the dinner table. How could we know the future and how distant it never was? The year I was born,

Jimmy Carter entered a melting-down nuclear reactor and repaired it, absorbing an entire year’s worth of radiation in

ninety seconds. He lived a century. Everything you’d never imagine happened. I never thought I’d cry for two whole days.

*

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Wind yesterday, wind again today, strong enough to rock
the thick, shaggy trunks of cedars. Dead leaves and bits of

paper rise in what sounds like surf—but no water. Sky’s a
mean blue beyond the jangled, empty maples. Too bright

and cold. Cold wind. Shuffle-click of military shoes, body-
bearers strapping the President’s casket covered with our

flag to a black caisson. The horses’ black necks curled like
question marks in the white sun. Someone gravel-voiced

huffing orders. More wind. Hoof-clatter, columns, stone
steps, a distant siren, an almost recognizable word caught

in the air, held aloft until it’s gone. One horse, riderless,
waving its head. The first President I had been old enough

to vote for. His voice on the old-even-then black and white
TV I’d repaired by replacing tubes. His serious Oval Office

camera-gaze, our sweet old world: blurry, glimmering. We
paid for things with coins. We didn’t want war but hadn’t

won one recently. My father was out of work. Me, too. Dad
and I drove to Unemployment together. Dad still liked him;

a President is a seat at the dinner table. How could we know
the future and how distant it never was? The year I was born,

Jimmy Carter entered a melting-down nuclear reactor and
repaired it, absorbing an entire year’s worth of radiation in

ninety seconds. He lived a century. Everything you’d never
imagine happened. I never thought I’d cry for two whole days.