TY HOLTER

Gates Rubber Factory

Past the refectory
the rubber
factory had been shut

broken
into constantly
a bored kid fell
six

stories to the factory
floor and
so it was

leveled and
made to wait till
there was a sense
it had aired out.

Your uncle’s lost
finger still
somewhere in the
rubble

like a steeple
in a cloud

his pension
on a technicality
denied

by technically
midnight.
Gone was the viaduct
the gas station

gone the sign I
mistook on Colorado
Boulevard
for the Texas moon.

Ty Holter is the author of Extended Stay (CCCP Chapbooks, 2023). His work has appeared in Firmament, Minor Literature[s], Keep Planning, and elsewhere. A teacher and poet, he lives in Western Massachusetts.