Katie Naughton, “Tuesday”

Author: Poetry Editor

January 14, 2014

Today, a poem by Katie Naughton.

TUESDAY

There’s still the rest of the week to put it back together –
the blackened boiler room the rusted-out furnace

the mortared bricks in the places they’ve fallen
brick by brick the failure of mortar the stone face

the years like intention like bricks falling
yours like abandon like how it cows

the hole in the roof the sparrows come through
the crows. The sun on wings or rain on bricks

the invasion the new green moldering
the boards turning to slime – this time you

up on the broad-board floor above the burned-out
boiler. This is where I’m from. You don’t know it

but you should you can smell in my skin
the dirt floor drunk up fumes and solvent

the pitch turpentine burnt oil damp rot – I am
not coming up to meet you. Keep up your tallies.

It will all, come dawn, it will all.

——

KATIE NAUGHTON grew up outside of Hartford, Connecticut and has since lived in Thailand, Brooklyn, and outside of Utica, New York. She is currently in the MFA program at Colorado State University. Her work has appeared previously in Underwater New York.