Poetry By Chantel L. Carlson

Eugene Kim CC




J'entends le Tonnerre / I Hear the Thunder

Outside the cracked back door 
of my grandmother’s shed, my father  

hunches over dusk’s late light 
showered with sugar cane. 

He churns Big Red pop against rock salt 
in the turquoise ice cream maker, 

resting against his sweaty knees.  I wait 
for hours for him to stream a reprieve

from the summer heat into green plastic cups.
His broad belly swells in laughter when 

grandma opens the utility room door,
tosses feed on the porch, hoping to lure 

a guinea for the gumbo.  Cicadas chorus 
in oak trees before us, with notes so high 

they might burst the pecans right out 
of their stitched shells, and I won’t have  

to crack anymore into the 8x8 rusted cake pan. 
C'est prêt.  Ca c’est bon?

The thunder answers before I can tell my father, 
“Yes, I want more.”

​


Chantel L. Carlson teaches creative writing at TCU.  Her one-act plays, Six Feet Apart and The Exhibit, were published by Next Stage Press.  Her poetry book, Oak Cradle, was published by Shanti Arts.  Her poetry has also appeared in Women & Language, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Writing Texas, and Anti-Heroin Chic.  Born and raised in Texas, but not a year goes by that she doesn’t go to Louisiana for food, family, and Mardi Gras parades.  ​