Jefferson Carter Verse-Virtual 2016 January

January 2016

I live in Tucson with my wife Connie and volunteer with Sky Island Alliance, a regionally-based environmental organization. I am also poetry editor for Zócalo, a local arts magazine. I'm an opportunist, not a poet with a plan. Whatever catches my fancy, I write about: an engaging image, a political or environmental issue, a bit of zoology, an overheard conversation, and, of course, love, love, love. In grad school, I fell in love with Jonathan Swift. Thirty years later, I still have to rein in my satirical impulses to protect whatever is tender in my poems.

The Falling Man

The tower’s gray & white stripes
like a corduroy curtain behind him,
the man, dark-skinned, wearing
a pale sports coat & black slacks,
the man isn’t falling. I’ve superglued
the photo upside-down to the inside
of my closet door. He isn’t falling,
one knee lifted, arms rigid, trapping
the billowing skirts of his jacket
against his sides. He’s anyone
I can imagine. The father of many girls.
An expert on the language of Greenland,
which has no expletives. A novice stepdancer
practicing his routine. Sometimes, when
no one’s around, I open the closet door
& say, “Good morning, Dancing Man.”

-previously published in The Kentucky Review