{"id":776,"date":"2010-04-12T19:40:55","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T00:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?p=776"},"modified":"2010-04-12T19:40:55","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T00:40:55","slug":"cat-conway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/cat-conway\/","title":{"rendered":"Cat Conway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Intermediate House Type No 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

I scrape paint in my council flat,<\/p>\n

pulling sheets of wet wallpaper,<\/p>\n

layer after layer of green, pink,<\/p>\n

texture, faux wood, trim.<\/p>\n

A Belgian tapestry emerges, red<\/p>\n

mille-fleurs, around the doorframe.<\/p>\n

Steam turns the cardboard walls to damp<\/p>\n

paper bags, easy and satisfying to scrape.<\/p>\n

Watery tendrils hang from the ceiling,<\/p>\n

a rainforest canopy bordering my living room.<\/p>\n

The heat moistens the plaster, stoking the earthy<\/p>\n

scents of water, sand, rocks, cement<\/p>\n

and I am back in Mexico, spring in the borderlands,<\/p>\n

building houses, mixing concrete by hand.<\/p>\n

We shoveled and churned, water breaking rocks<\/p>\n

as the spades hit, slapping sand into mud.<\/p>\n

Eventually we fell into sync: shove, lift, turnover, step,<\/em><\/p>\n

shove, lift, turnover, step<\/em><\/p>\n

There is always so much work to do.<\/p>\n

Rust Belts<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hellfire is coke and limestone in a blast furnace.<\/p>\n

I saw Hell from El Paso<\/p>\n

as we drove through the Borderlands \u2013<\/p>\n

yellow lights dotting the abyss<\/p>\n

of American refineries on Mexican soil \u2013<\/p>\n

cheap labour, low wages.<\/p>\n

No hope.<\/p>\n

I saw Hell in East Chicago:<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Steel built here<\/p>\n

among dark satanic mills,<\/p>\n

towers of obsidian rising into a rusted sky,<\/p>\n

hugging a Great Lake of fire.<\/p>\n

Damned in denim and hardhat headlamps<\/p>\n

eat beans and chilies, red pepper,<\/p>\n

roasted pig iron, tamales<\/em> \u2013<\/p>\n

they want ice water.<\/p>\n

I could see Hell in Sheffield:<\/p>\n

Sooty faces, the fallen in flannel,<\/p>\n

blasting molten rock into white hot ribbons,<\/p>\n

cold rolled onto chrome bobbins; scalding<\/p>\n

slag into mountainous, dusty heaps.<\/p>\n

Dead embers, clink of metal on metal<\/p>\n

an echo of cooled ash.<\/p>\n

I do not fear Hell.<\/p>\n

I hug the spit and the smoke smells of home.<\/p>\n

Fan Club<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the floor of barricaded bedrooms,<\/p>\n

wrists bleed ribbons into pink cotton.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

edible jewelery, pink cotton, candy-coloured eyeshadow palettes,<\/em><\/p>\n

buttery lip gloss, cheap cologne ampuless, rubber bracelets,<\/em><\/p>\n

Scraping through each shattering year,<\/p>\n

praying to our smouldering rock gods,<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

glittery hair slides, neon eyeliner, used acne pads,<\/em><\/p>\n

half-empty packs of bubble gum, notes passed in class,<\/em><\/p>\n

broken headbands, heart-shaped stickers,<\/em><\/p>\n

offerings in supplication on bedroom dresser altars:<\/p>\n

Please save us.<\/p>\n

images of icons and saints cut from the pages of magazines<\/em><\/p>\n

cassettes without cases, cases without cassettes,<\/em><\/p>\n

inky vinyl 45s, empty soda cans<\/em><\/p>\n

They do not answer.<\/p>\n

Scabs picked open, weeping wounds mar<\/p>\n

scars; worn with pride, badges of honour.<\/p>\n

Cat Conway is a financial journalist and student at the University of Greenwich researching The White Goddess in Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. Her work has previously appeared in Magma, Bitch, the upcoming Hyperkinetic: High Velocity Tales from the Inner City anthology from Phoenix Publishing and academic journal Plath Profiles 3.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Intermediate House Type No 5 I scrape paint in my council flat, pulling sheets of wet wallpaper, layer after layer of green, pink, texture, faux wood, trim. A Belgian tapestry emerges, red mille-fleurs, around the doorframe. Steam turns the cardboard walls to damp paper bags, easy and satisfying to scrape. Watery tendrils hang from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-2010","tag-cat-conway"],"yoast_head":"\nCat Conway - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/2010\/04\/cat-conway\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cat Conway - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Intermediate House Type No 5 I scrape paint in my council flat, pulling sheets of wet wallpaper, layer after layer of green, pink, texture, faux wood, trim. 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