Jane L. Carman Poems

it’s nearly noon and the sun slices
through the thick spring fog, dark
with winter’s gloom, heavy with fatality:
the spent daffodil’s bloom, the cut
...

Gazing at the still
white body
I half-expect
water colored eyes
...

Despite transparent walls
the caterpillar
chews asclepsia
a regimen
...

I picture you
legs bent
feet on your highs
their permanent resting place
...

I am a strong nation
I wield power
to the right
to the left and back
...

Our father who
aren’t in heaven
or hell
dear brother
...

Momma was a girl, only twelve.
Daddy was an old man. He run
moonshine. His business, he said.
Momma was also his business.
...

I am a sick nation
a spiteful nation
the man underground
has nothing beneath me
...

I float in
the Atlantic
and wake
up north
...

You, Spoon River, with your thirsty
whirls tried to swallow my only son
you pulled him, eyes shocked, under your
surface, shot him back up for that final
...