Snail Trail Press

Katie Naughton

warming ending what it may you persist

dawn is not mine day still breaks yellow outline the windowsill springs my room my preparations the things your postcard thaws careful failing provisions the worn song the country morning whether it runs cold the river swelled the fat April drops express of clouds to ground already over -turned ready earth in wide ribs I wait warm season for you some morning through that screen bright air in time I try to end to trail my fingers (the frozen pond the geese announce but where are you )
what to make of it but run late at night when all the heat is earthed the sun the other side of the world past dark fields widest skies and night vision the red low barn holed through with weather my body then my body and yours night in the field there of growing trees where I left me against you in the wind through the summer leaves in the dark how I leave in my sneakers leaving home running after a family a teenage feeling I left was left became older I became you became family and you in a house in a field lit at night left a remainder of me

from "The Hearing of Moths"

the city doesn’t come off us not in waves like heat diffusing in the irregular air around us me I know money second-hand dressed lunchtimes a shining wall always heard caught smooth in the throat the sounds themselves partake of light through deep water sun the deeper water the nearer the glass world built of air in melting ice the lemonade in the weft of thick cotton
summer money’s season the daylight will the weather of the water the air turns hot poor careful dust blooms and what is mine? some things I came by take some space full and blank people drawn from circumstance by sun this is the moment of crisis this is the crisis

//

money could be had by making it in a city of one kind hand made money I join some world its seamed promise (not ?) at odds the woods the edge of suburban sub- developments some houses banks rivers and buildings equals not equivalent I make work

Katie Naughton is a poet living in Buffalo, NY, where she is a student in the Poetics program at SUNY - Buffalo. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Colorado State University. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, Jubilat, Reality Beach, Third Coast, Opon, Flag + Void, and elsewhere. She is the publicity editor for Essay Press.