Poetry by Carol Parris Krauss

Carol Parris Krauss is honored to have published poetry in Louisiana Lit, ൪uartet, the Arkansas Review, Salvation South, Eclectica, One Art, Story South, The South Carolina Review, and the Mid/South Sonnet Anthology, among others. Fernwood Press published her full-length book, Mountain.Memory.Marsh, in November of 2025. Carol was born in South Carolina to mystical mountain people, raised in North Carolina, and attended Clemson University. She currently lives in Virginia with her St. Bernard, Martha June. 

A Gaggle of Geese

It has become fashionable again,
the plastic goose on the front stoop
wearing a sun bonnet and a calico apron.
Southerners, we romanticize the strangest things.
Some, the most dangerous things.

I have real geese. Gaggles. Canada ones
who block traffic at the shopping center entrance,
honk loudly, and leave milky green droppings
across church parking lots. Geese are not cute,
but bound to this area of Virginia through genetics.
Simple evolution. Essentially flightless.

The men marching out at Virginia Beach
beneath Lee’s flag remind me of geese. Loud.
Territorial. Traveling in gaggles. Shitting everywhere.
Certainly not suitable for the front porch.

Again. I grabbed and put on the high-waisted leopard

print panties. The ones with no elastic. It is the beginning
of the second block, and they are so far up my ass I
can feel them in the back of my throat.

In a classroom full of 12th graders, picking a wedgie
would be the end of my career. The shame, the horror,
the stories spreading from class to class by the end
of the school day.

Going to the bathroom between classes in a hallway of
close to 1700 students and returning to my room before
the next class is unfeasible. So I wiggle, walk weird,
and wait.

Imminent relief, an impossible but beautiful dream. Like
early retirement and no AP Lit. essays left to grade.