November 2021
Bio Note: I have work in such journals as Carolina Quarterly, Barrow Street, and Rattle. My eleventh collection, Birkenstock Blues (Presa Press: Rockford, MI), is now available through my website. I live in Tucson, AZ, with my wife Connie. I’m a passionate supporter of Sky Island Alliance, a regionally-based environmental organization.
Memoir in Progress
My verse memoir begins,
my parents met cute
at a cockfight, chicken blood
enhancing my father’s thuggish
good looks. My brother,
inspired by the slogan
“Be All You Can Be,”
began smuggling assault rifles
& grenade launchers
into Northern Mexico.
My sister, the pretty one,
disappeared, sold into slavery
by Coco Chanel or Dior.
Me? I’ll continue this memoir.
How do you know where
you’re going if you don’t know
where you’ve been? Every day,
every minute, I thank the
government’s benign neglect,
which allows me & a thousand
other weeds to flourish
in the cracks where children
once broke their parents’ backs.
Mbuti
If even one person talks
while I’m reciting, I lose heart.
So, Cállate! Which means
“shut up” in Spanish.
In a dream, my birth parents
hosted a family of Mbuti
pygmies from the Congo
without telling me.
I came out of the bathroom
& saw five young ones
waiting for me in my bed.
Up close, they smelled like
street people, that odor of
sour milk & spent lavender.
The oldest wore my new pajamas,
super-soft French flannel.
The youngest smiled around
my night-time tooth guard.
We regarded each other,
anticipating what they call
an “A-ha moment” & then. . . .
Then I woke up. Ok.
You can talk now.
©2021 Jefferson Carter
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell her or him. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL