Jessie Carty

Habit Forming

Becky was a scab picker,
her skin: white divots.

On the bus no one sat with her,
saying "lice ridden" "rat bitten"

"so poor she shares a bed
with her brother" which was

somehow such a bad thing.
I'd sit in the back of the bus

where the older kids played
Truth or Dare; where, behind

raised jackets, I touched
a boy's pale penis; where

whispers started about what
you would do for a quarter—

voices that began to say
chew your hair, your nails,

the inside skin of your lip.

CP

Jessie Carty is the author of three poetry collections but she also chisels away at prose in between teaching at RCCC in Concord, NC. You can find her taking photos and editing Referential Magazine or blogging at http://jessiecarty.com.

Jessie Carty

Hidden Treasure

From a yard sale I bought a jewelry box of pressed orangey wood
which had three small drawers on the right side and one long
plastic door on the left
stenciled with a white oval.

On the left I hung my necklaces.
In the top two drawers I stowed rings
and charms. But, the bottom drawer, was shorter.
Behind it I hid my meager money. The bills
earned from mowing a lawn, watching
a child, or skipping lunch
at school.

But he found it there, and in my shoe and somehow,
even in the last place I thought a father would go—
an underwear drawer.

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Jessie Carty's work has appeared in Margie, Weave and The Northville Review. She is the author of two chapbooks At the A & P Meridiem (Pudding House, 2009) and The Wait of Atom (Folded Word, 2009). Her first full length collection will be released in 2010. You can find her around the web but mostly here.

Beaters
Jessie Carty

A green van is in the breakdown lane,
smoke curling from its open silver hood.
A woman stands several car lengths
away, a child on her hip.

In profile, she reminds me of you.
If you were here now you’d be 55.
Would you still be driving those old beaters?

There was that mustard yellow sedan
that had to be strategically parked
because it couldn’t go into reverse.

And that Olds 88 you never wanted
to give up, even when the floors
rusted through. You covered the holes
with grey plastic mats. I’d lift them,
tossing candy onto the road.

I had to be careful, though,
to sit in the middle of the bench
seat because the doors
were known to ghost open.

CP

Jessie Carty's work has appeared in journals such as Margie and Iodine Poetry Journal. Her first chapbook will be published by Puddinghouse Publications in 2009.