The World Is Everything That Is the Fall by Laura Carter

​The World Is Everything That Is the Fall
 
 
O my friends, there is no friend.
 
There is only a brother, who does not believe his heart is pure.
 
There is only democracy, for what that is worth.
 
There is always a fraternal window. There is always a sororal footprint on this edge. There is usually a clearing.
 
There is only one brother. He listens to a violin play in his room.
 
There is, within his listening, a fierce destruction. He listens long.
 
He pauses. (There is a turn, into love.) He waits, for a time.
 
He, too, is a life that wills to live.
 
He is life that wills to live among living. They all, there, among each other, are living.
 
Were any of them (once) called?
 
Did any of them (ever) try?
 
Did any (ever) eat a green apple of winter?
 
Are any in an ever spring?
 
Are any and all springs false with sheened illusion, like a gauzy napkin drawn over the lap of a dilettante?
 
Who created them out of flux?
 
Who would give them a pronouncement of love?
 
Is love always (toujours) pronounced on or upon us?

(They eat, alone.)
 
(They enter night, each alone.)
 
Who will create their lives?
 
In whose or what’s shadow?

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Laura Carter lives in Atlanta, GA. She has published several chapbooks since 2007, including three with Dancing Girl Press. She teaches college English, too.