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Debt Ritual: Material





the wild interior
the motion imperceptible of dill fronds reaching toward the pane of window light
the pale green of difficulty
the dust arrives each week on the carpet
the hair falls from the head (our heads)
the crumb from the loaf (our breakfasts)
the air marked with particles a wind blows through
the compost grows warm the heat of eggshells and squash
a rock achieves and refuses stasis
it takes heat to animate thought
reciprocal bodily proximity
one week the bruised brain makes us materialists
the hazy too-brightness of all sound and image
the window and the television
all manner of symbol alike


Katie Naughton is a doctoral candidate in the Poetics program at SUNY - Buffalo and holds an MFA in creative writing from Colorado State University. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in jubilat, Michigan Quarterly Review,  Reality Beach, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. She is at work on two collections of poems, “Hour Song,” which was a finalist for the 2021 Nightboat Poetry Prize under the title “the real ethereal,” and “Debt Ritual.” A chapbook, Study, is forthcoming from Above/Ground press in 2021. She is the publicity editor for Essay Press and founder of Etcetera, a web journal of reading recommendations from poets (launching spring 2021).