Anywhere snow falls becomes a temple.
An image draped in weather,
its silent white auspices that shatter.
The shape of a vehicle; the unbearable
silence inside it. The tires huddled
beneath its frame. White drifts
of weather fold it in: heavy,
pressed, a clover in a book.
Temporary. A prayer:
yes to wheels, to the idea of wheels,
they are the temple we have built,
the shrine to our god
which is leaving wherever we are.
Katie Byrum is the author of the poetry collection Burn It Down. A native Kentuckian, she currently lives in Brooklyn. Her work has been featured in Gulf Coast, Lumberyard, Big Bell, Split Lip Magazine, Handsome, Poor Claudia: Phenome, and elsewhere. For sixteen years, she has worked in the food and beverage industry, studying whiskey and its effects on the human psyche. She co-curates two poetry events in Brooklyn: the witchy series COVEN and the Tri-Lengua Reading Series.
Image: “Beecher Creek Falls” by ©Chuck Miller
Pine Hills Review 