Current
Issue
Volume 12.1
Camille Carter
—
THAT SUMMER
On the mezzanine, you tasted blood
Beneath dim-lit arcades: this song’s
Arcane. You didn’t know your reason;
I didn’t know which hand to hold you
With. So I chose neither. You could’ve
Nosedived from the balustrade like that.
I thought never. O bless-me-gullible.
Impervious to glory holes. Trick-mazes.
Hard-cornered edges and flying roses.
Unhallowed hymns un-hollowed then.
Hosanna-hydrangeas. Amputees with
Angel limbs. Passageways. The perfume
In her hair. Lives, paved with basaltic
Clay. Glass girls with the body-quivers.
Radioactive glitter that fell slantwise,
Still swimming in the forever-summer
Air. Our sweat beads were a rosary.
Anticipation. The best lowered their
Heads. We thought we were the best.
Camille Carter (she/her) is an American poet and scholar. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2025, Incessant Pipe, New American Writing, POETRY Magazine, Passages North, North American Review, and Literary Matters. A 2024 Best of the Net nominee, Carter has received several honors for her work, including the Hackney Literary Award for
National Poetry, and has been a two-time finalist for the RASH Award in Poetry. Her debut poetry collection, Chinook, is forthcoming. She is currently a doctoral
student in Comparative Literature at the University at Buffalo and serves as the Literary Fellow at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.
