Jared Carter’s most recent book of poems, The Land Itself, is from Monongahela Books in Morgantown, West Virginia. He lives in Indiana.
Leather
In essence, then, does she become
your phantom limb
By drawing on these gloves? Benumbed,
her touch within
Feels nothing of your body flensed.
She disallows
Your counterclaim of innocence;
surely by now
You can’t object, since, donned anew,
you are but bling,
Entirely converted to
a nameless thing.