CAMILLE CARTER (she/her) is an American poet and scholar. She lives and teaches in New York, where she is currently pursuing her PhD in Comparative Literature. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2025, Five Points, New American Writing, POETRY Magazine, Passages North, and Raritan. At present, she is the Literary Fellow In-Residence at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York.
On the mezzanine, you tasted blood
Beneath dim-lit arcades: this song’s
Arcane. You didn’t know your reason;
I didn’t know which hand to hold you
With. So I chose neither. You could’ve
Nosedived from the balustrade like that.
I thought never. O bless-me-gullible.
Impervious to glory holes. Trick-mazes.
Hard-cornered edges and flying roses.
Unhallowed hymns un-hollowed then.
Hosanna-hydrangeas. Amputees with
Angel limbs. Passageways. The perfume
In her hair. Lives, paved with basaltic
Clay. Glass girls with the body-quivers.
Radioactive glitter that fell slantwise,
Still swimming in the forever-summer
Air. Our sweat beads were a rosary.
Anticipation. The best lowered their
Heads. We thought we were the best.
Volume 15.2 ✧ Summer 25
Camille Carter
