Tag: Jessie Carty

Two Poems by Jessie Carty

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

Alternative Homes

I keep daydreaming of alternative
homes, ways to define
a room of my own. I’d take that
run-down, L-shaped, rural motel
and turn it into an artist retreat
named “Rhymes with Oranges”.
Each room, a different flavor
of citrus. The former owner’s
two-story quarters, converted
into a common space. Maybe
I’ve watched too many remodeling
shows, but every abandoned
retro, cinder block gas station
feels like an opportunity.

*

Running the Roads

The place I think of, most often,
as my childhood home
was off a paved, two-lane road.

To us, this was a “major” road.
And it did, in fact, connect
the whole neighborhood

to the four lane highway
about five miles away.
My father “joked” about the road,

telling us to go play in the street,
when he wanted us out of a room.
Or, he’d remark at how he’d run

over Santa or the Easter Bunny,
maybe even the Tooth Fairy,
to explain why they would not be visiting.

I didn’t walk along that road as often
as the side streets. I liked to wander,
sometimes closing my eyes to see

if I could walk in a straight line.
By the time I could drive
we’d moved away from that road,

into a more structured neighborhood
of unlined roads that argued for slow
speeds and polite “you go next,

no you” activity. Either way, I still
wanted to wander. My father called it
“running the roads”. He never understood

why I’d want to drive into town
(about five miles each way)
to pick up ice cream for a snack.

But, if I was going, he’d always add
to my list: dog food,
cigarettes, a newspaper.

As I grew older, I pondered how differently
we measured distance. He’d drive
across the state to look at a piece of land

he wanted to believe he could afford,
but he wouldn’t drive the same distance
to visit me once I’d finished college

and settled into marriage
and a career
hours away.

*

Jessie Carty (she/her) is the author of eight poetry collections including Shopping After the Apocalypse (dancing girl press, 2016) which was nominated for a 2017 Elgin Award. Jessie is a part-time freelance writer, teacher, editor, and full-time Instructional Designer. She recently got back into blogging about her travels to visit all 100 counties in NC: (http://notjessica58.blogspot.com)

Two Poems by Jessie Carty

~ ONE ART ~ Leave a comment

The Wave

How do you define
a ghost? One poet wrote
“she sees ghosts before breakfast”.
And I wrote that my mother was a ghost
librarian. How would she catalog a ghost? Under
Parapsychology? Haunted stories? A misty manifestation
of what you do or don’t want? Does everything always
come back to want? That even if we let the plot
meander and spiral, it will eventually
release, maybe not with a climax,
per se, but perhaps
with a wave.

*

“Imagine small talk when the weather is perfect”

after Emilia Philips poem titled “The Queerness of Eve” from “Nonbinary Bird of Paradise”
the title of this poem is a line from that poem

Time bends a conversation
like a double rainbow.

I ask if you can tell
where indigo

meets violet
but you hear

violent. An arch
can crack

from subsidence;
from poor

initial foundations;
from a shift

in temperature; from
the placement

of a hand.

*

Jessie Carty (she/her) is the author of eight poetry collections including Shopping After the Apocalypse (dancing girl press, 2016) which was nominated for a 2017 Elgin Award. Jessie is a part-time freelance writer, teacher, editor, and full-time Instructional Designer. She recently got back into blogging about her travels to visit all 100 counties in NC: (http://notjessica58.blogspot.com)