Carrie Etter: Two Poems

Carrie Etter

Carrie Etter's first collection, The Tethers, was published by Seren Books in 2009, and her second, Divining for Starters, will be published by Shearsman in 2011. She has also published several pamphlets, including The Son (Oystercatcher, 2009), which was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. She teaches as a senior lecturer in creative writing at Bath Spa University and as a tutor for The Poetry School.

A Birthmother’s Catechism

What are you waiting for?

I’m not waiting

What are you waiting for?

A flood like only one other

What are you waiting for?

My last orchard

What are you waiting for?

To be found by design, by desire

What are you waiting for?

The end of shame

Misstep

When I hear a snail’s shell crack underfoot, I flinch at the easy giving way, the fragile shield snapping, pushing into the soft, wet body within. I think of my bedridden father, never sure what broke him. A lamb on an altar, a plea on a falling star, a doctor on call: such feeble charms. With the edge of my shoe, I scrape glutinous shards into the grass, but a stain remains on the cement. It will be gone in days.