Poetry: Selections from Carol Graser

Root Canal

Outside the dentist’s building
an audacious dance of tree
 
A pine, black with rain and
hand splays of long yellow needles
 
I am going to the chair
and this tree stands posed
 
muscles flexed and holding
This tree won’t come inside
 
stand behind the dentist
peering in at my teeth
 
and wink at me. All the trees
have better things to do
 
I’m sitting in her branches
now, telling you this



That Winter

After the long snowmelt
the ground froze and we walked
over the brown grass like
cement, unforgiving
 
and the moon rose like
a full radiant pearl
that melted nothing. We sat
all in our separate chairs
 
and told our disparate
stories. The wind repeated
herself: cold & cold
& cold & cold. We blinked
 
against frosted cheeks. Some
of us knew the story
that would call a softer
wind. They were still cradling
 
its newness. They were still  
nursing its hunger. What could
we do but wait, let our breath
warm our frigid fingers
 




Carol Graser’s work has been published or is forthcoming in many journals, including Apricity Magazine, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Evening Street Review, Hollins Critic, I-70 Review, The MacGuffin, Midwifery Today, So to Speak, Southern Poetry Review, and Home Planet News. Her collection, The Wild Twist of Their Stems, was published by FootHills Publishing in 2007. Since 2003, she’s run the monthly poetry series at the legendary Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY and has performed her work at various events and venues around New York State.

Comments

  1. Wonderful poems Carol. You have such an authentic voice. It's all you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carol, these are beautiful. Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete

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