Stephen Knauth

Stephen Knauth is the author of The River I Know You By and Twenty Shadows, both from Four Way Books, and several other collections of poetry. His work has appeared in North American Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry Daily, and Water-Stone Review. He has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the North Carolina Arts Council.

October

Make the mountain tall
and fly the gaudy colors that glorify death.
We will come with our stuff,
stopping at every overlook
to see how far we've come, to see
the tiny billboards and steeples.
Tuna sandwiches at the top, under stunted oak—
you can see three states if you stand here.
We come with open mouths that slowly close
as Autumn's elders begin to speak:
the lone cricket, the lake,
the hooded coals of the fire.