April is Poetry Month - meet Catherine Carter

 Because April is Poetry Month, we will be posting poetry sent to me by some of our members who are poets. 

Catherine Carter

Photo by Terri Clark Photography in Sylva. 

WITCH HAIRS 

Not hairs. Boar
bristles, thistle
thorns, catfish barbels,
wolf whiskers, sprung
from a nose and chin
that’ve called to each
other forty-five years
across the short chasm
of philtrum and lips, and only
now drawing nearer
and nearer, connected
by folds turned to grooves
turned to dry ditches
only deepened by the rare
brackish flash-flood.
Old women have always been
witches, and these are
the marks of the witch:
these wires with roots
deeper than teeth.
They smack of a witch-curse,
a desperate bargain,
the kind of deal
you strike with the dark
when there’s little
left in your hand—
two low hearts,
a single waiting spade—
a deal with the powers of air
and hair.

Catherine Carter’s collections of poetry with LSU Press include The Memory of Gills, The Swamp Monster at Home, and Larvae of the Nearest Stars.  She is a professor of English at Western Carolina University.