All you ever wanted
is to feel free. To abandon
each self: self-conscious, self-doubt. (You are
who you want to be when no one is looking.)
It no longer matters how much
you’re happy. You are, you’re alone,
listening to the miracle of a wall
as you thrill to a partner
folded in your arms, memory retold
in socked feet sliding over the wood floor.
No one may ever know your deepest sorrow,
but it cannot stop a hand from reaching out.
You watch it now, yours, foreign as it always was,
still filled with unreadable longing.
Solitary figure
unseen. Salt and breath
mix in the afternoon light.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 23, Issue 6.
Laton Carter’s writing has recently appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Gold Man Review, Indiana Review, and Shirley Magazine. Carter works in a middle school in Western Oregon.
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