Carey Salerno is the Executive Director of Alice James Books, a nonprofit cooperative poetry press. She has a MFA in creative writing from New England College. Carey's poems appear on From the Fishouse, and in Natural Bridge, The Dirty Napkin, and Rattle. Her first book, Shelter, won a 2007 Kinereth Gensler Award. She lives in western Maine.
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Erasing Digital Photos
I shouldn’t make you pollution―
what I mean is once I looked at and brushed your shoulder,
once you meant but did not slip your hand
.............................about my waist or did I dream it was our hips touching
and say it aloud to hold my fantasy? When ice throngs upon the St. Lawrence, when I pose
upon the cannon within the row of cannons, I want the meadow
below packed snow to come forth in our presence.
.............................Don’t ask me as you scale down to the broken bank,
water cut to pieces how I like it, how I like my sandwich
in the shape of a star
and you cut it for me and serve the star and I mention I want softness
like the seat on the unused cannon you clear for me
.................................before snapping the photograph, my body black on the black cannon then
.............................made some proof we live.
what I mean is once I looked at and brushed your shoulder,
once you meant but did not slip your hand
.............................about my waist or did I dream it was our hips touching
and say it aloud to hold my fantasy? When ice throngs upon the St. Lawrence, when I pose
upon the cannon within the row of cannons, I want the meadow
below packed snow to come forth in our presence.
.............................Don’t ask me as you scale down to the broken bank,
water cut to pieces how I like it, how I like my sandwich
in the shape of a star
and you cut it for me and serve the star and I mention I want softness
like the seat on the unused cannon you clear for me
.................................before snapping the photograph, my body black on the black cannon then
.............................made some proof we live.