Poetry by Carolyn Adams

                          ​barbara w CC



How to Judge the Ripeness of an Apple

They’ll slowly turn to rose, I hear.
Why did I mistake need for something better?
It isn’t what ripens, it’s what doesn’t.
Something rustles in the wisteria vines.
Tiny finches surf the billows of the pine.

The sunlight is turning toward fall, slowly.
Had I known, I’d have stayed away.
Everything hinges on the proper timing.

Somehow, I’ll just let things go.
There’s a white moth laying crazy stitches in the roses.
Excuse me: the moth is pale green.
My judgement, misused, is faulty as ever. 

​



Window Strike

The casualty crumples in my palm
and readies herself for the worst.

Her chest is a bellows,
lifting millimeters of air.  
A black bead eye watches, 
assuming I will wound her
and she’ll die.

I fit her in cotton 
snugged in a small bed.
A bit of sunlight warms her.
She blinks and awaits the strike.

Even as I drive to the building
where people will lift her
and care for her, she doesn’t move.
A stone, waiting.

Accustomed to being prey 
she doesn’t know I am saving her,
she doesn’t recognize rescue,
probably doesn’t even have a word for it.
But I do.  For me, the word 
is “friend”, is “worthy”.  
The word is “love”.




​
​Lightening the Load

If I knew what was real,
I would tell you.
Blue lines of sky 
against boxes we’ve built 
seem tangible, 
like titles that flow 
in the air around us.
But what can’t be named
is what’s real.

Otherwise,
I’d have countless    
words for it.
I’d call them out,
collect them like
stones and silver.

In the small shadows
of what you know,
you dip your fingers
in stains, and smear
the offenses on windows.
You never forget 
what they are.

Nurture your petty tableau,
keep it if you want.
In the end, it means nothing.

I could wonder about you,
who you are, why you are,
the real of you.

But of all my burdens,
I don’t choose
the weight of you.

​

Carolyn Adams’ poetry and art have appeared in Panoply, Amsterdam Quarterly, Visitant, Bryant Literary Review, and Trajectory, among others. Nominated for a Pushcart and for Best of the Net, she is a staff editor for Mojave River Review, and a poetry editor for VoiceCatcher.

---