Poetry By Carrie Albert

Susanne Nilsson CC




For Kindness

He thinks my words are too nice,
that one must be cruel to be of literary 
intrigue, ready to stick one’s knife 
into the heart of a poem and then study 
the cadaver, shun anyone’s approval. 
Why is kindness good
in a friend and bad in writing?

“Kindness is the light of life”
(according to my Yogi teabag fortune).

2.

Kindness bends, voice relents
gives up argument. content with distance, neither fighting, 
nor resistant. Am I soft 
as bird feather in his ear,
sea waves of distant traffic,
gentle as the scent of electricity?

Am I  overripe apples
that can’t hold onto limb? The forgotten 
name of a folk band that once mattered? 
Softness resembles death, 
is like kindness. 

3.

My father was happy the day
he made me cry in front of him,
he said, because I always went to my room. 
I swore at him then
instantly regretted it. This poem 
must be for him too.​




Carrie Albert is a writer and visual artist. Sometimes these merge. Her works have been published widely in journals and anthologies, most recently: The Protest Diaries (B Cubed Press), Gyroscope Review, Sleet, Plumtree Homeless Edition, and Ekphrastic Review. She lives in Seattle with her papier-mâché animals.
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