by Camille Carter

by Camille Carter

1.
What was true before
was always true

2.
[The Europeans report, Il n’y a pas de quoi]

A French tongue will
taste its own elitism.

3.
A waiting man shall don many masks.

4.
Were Rilke here, he’d have something
To say about your loneliness.

5.
To sanitize: pour a drink,
Dip your hands.

6.
When a woman mutters “animals” at the
Back of a grocery line, only then: exhausted hope.

7.
In the sick times
Will there also be singing?
There will also be singing
About the sick times.

8.

But that’s an epigram!

I’ve had it with proverbs,
I’m starting to get bored.

9.
To drown: pour a drink,
Dip your head. Don’t
Come up for air.

10.
No one cares about your dog.

11.
Torn toilet paper, torn-up heart.

12.
Sick man, poor man.

13.
Bourgeois wife, aggressive shopper.

14.
Historical analogies
Will not measure up.

15.
Build a house, wish you hadn’t.

16.
Were Rilke here – wait, is he here?

I thought that. Just checking.

17.
A masked-up mother mutters.

18.
You will soon have
Had your fill of
Uno and Parcheesi.

19.
Rilke might have something to say
About my loneliness.
But you, dear? You do not.

_____________________________________________________________

Camille Carter is a poet, writer, and traveler. Her poem “Torch Song” was featured in the most recent issue of Hotel Amerika. She has studied at Loyola University - New Orleans, the University of Chicago, and KU-Leuven. She currently lives and works in Harlem, Montana, where she teaches at Aaniiih Nakoda College on the Fort Belknap Reservation.