Kari Gunter-Seymour
A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen,
Winner of the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year Award
by Kari Gunter-Seymour
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Kari Gunter-Seymour (she/her) is the Poet Laureate of Ohio and the author of three award-winning collections of poetry, including Dirt Songs (EastOver Press 2024), winner of the IPPY Bronze and Feathered Quill Awards. She is the Executive Director of the Women of Appalachia Project and editor of its anthology series Women Speak. Her work has been featured in a variety of journals and the American Book Review, Poem-a-Day, World Literature Today and The New York Times. www.karigunterseymourpoet.com
Tonight The Light Bulb in My Head Pulled its Own Chain
I get it now. My sister didn’t
spend years of our childhood
holding a sweaty hand across my mouth
when our mother wasn’t looking
simply because siblings can be spiteful.
I was a pogo stick, a kettle drum,
a galloping horse pounding
the linoleum floor—
she a papery blossom
pirouetting the tip of a prickly cactus,
gouging herself again and again
with every attempt to keep up.
She tried Christianity, an ashram,
buried herself in books
and herbs, hoping for clues—
a map to unriddle minds,
interpret body language.
My ye-ha energy a nettle,
scratching, rashing,
signaling her adrenals to fire,
to shoot spikes of electric current
up and down her spine,
Tonight’s sky is a painting,
its wounded undertones a reproach.
When we found her body there was no note,
no drama, no blame, as if
she simply no longer had the strength
to scratch out even one last
God-forsaken word.
As if Your Death is Not Enough
In the car, alone, trapped,
your specter slinks my spine—
hair-raising pangs, rapid-fire bolts
jabbing my headbone.
No amount of podcast or Tom Petty,
no Sweet Jesus please can hinder
your grip, my tongue tacky
as a morning-after drunk.
I try to spit you out in road rage—
gas pedal and middle finger,
your name a sharp prickle
tooth-scraping my lower lip.
A host of shuddersome
black birds crouch a mile
of metal fence, wings tucked,
heads bent. Winds sharp
as spiteful words
rend the last of the milkweed,
a desperate dance of ovules,
a cloister of too-late’s and if-only’s,
their shadows setting off
to some other place altogether.
