I peck his cheek
and comment
that his beard smells
of cedar and graphite.
pencils.
I am a pome:
my central core
contains a seed
of lead
with which I shall author our children.
T.L. Carter teaches freshman composition at a local liberal arts university. Her work, which revels in the tension between radical softness and nature, appears in Pussy Magic. They live in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.