Squirrel Machine / Brain Collage
A Napkin Poem by Katrina Smolinsky
I’m following my instincts, stowing away scraps of life to glue down later, the same way that, midnight-drunk, I pick up a stray cat off the sidewalk just to hear it purr. I plan to keep everything you give: a watering can full of sea glass, a sundried swimsuit, empty birdsong overheard on an intercom. You’re leaving and I can be okay with that because I’m taking the dog for a walk in knee-high snow. I’m only reading books with kissing but I’m erasing my notes from the margins. I’m thinking of my first crush, Svanhildr, a chain-smoker from Iceland who taught me to ride a horse and how to cuff my jeans. You owe me nothing so fundamental. I’m cutting pictures from magazines: An earthworm, a swan neck—every image a winter shadow, long and desperate.
Katrina Smolinsky is a poet from Tacoma, WA. She holds an MFA from the College of Charleston and can be found on Bluesky @katrinajo.bsky.social.
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