A home ‘long the rail line. Hiawassee, Georgia. by Harry Katz (Virginia, 21)

I’m aghast, my love,
That I missed you again this time around.
It simply can’t be helped.

Old friends of mine, growing older still,
Are tying the knot in Savannah
In a manor much like yourself.
I think you’d like her, visage all stately pillars,
Proud copper plaque on her breast.

If I can find you again,
No easy feat riding these rails,
I’ll make you a promise:
I’ll leap from the quiet car where
No one will look up from their books.
And I’ll roll as I hit the forest floor,
Stalk ‘cross the marshland to stand before your hearth.

Cracked plaster I’ll restore. And
Collapsed roof I will resurrect.
Christening your porch with mint juleps,
Swinging doors open
In time with the oncoming thunder.

There’s life in you yet:
Birds in the mailbox and bees in the attic,
But they’re supplemental.
A single beam could stand, and
Still you’d endure.

​Harry Katz is a part-time bartender and full-time student in the Department of American Studies at Stanford University. His work has appeared in the Rye Whiskey Review and the White Cresset Arts Journal and won the Bocock Guerard Fiction Prize. He lives in the stormiest part of Central Virginia, in a county with far more cows than people. He can be found and reached at @katzinbag on Twitter.