Today we tore out
your mother’s kitchen,
methodically sledge-
hammering one cabinet
after another after another:
my hands prybar tired,
arms and shoulders weak
from hammer and saw,
radiating back
ache after ripping up
cabinet blocks in leaning,
pit bull jerks by hand.
For the first time in weeks
I forgot the world,
got lost in prying wood,
the hollow pop of freed nails—
brutal, physical, satisfying work.
We left the kitchen haunted bare,
covered in sawdust and sweat,
smiling tired success.
Terysa Dyer’s poems have appeared in Utah Life Magazine, and her poetry collection, “Snowman,” was featured as part of Southern Utah University’s Art of Literature Chapbook Series in 2015. Her poetry is currently on display alongside artworks as part of the Women, Surrealism, and Abstraction exhibition at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. She lives in Logan, Utah.