Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsFall 2019  Vol. 18 No. 2
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an online journal of literature and the arts
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back CATIE ROSEMURGY

Diorama (map legend)

Snow:
comfort, the deep kind
that doesn’t always reach you
but is always streaming toward you

House:
where one lives and rests;
a matted area;
a pause or omission in a story

Factory:
an attempt, carefully measured and painted;
a modification made for everyone’s safety

Snow:
a serif font

Gold River:
a town that forms from wear like a blister

Scissors and/or cured rubber:
essential supplies;
the safest way to touch a story

Button, red:
a girl, sudden, or a sudden girlishness

Ribbon:
window light from across a field that you’ve wound around a clump of your hair

Button, silver:
a tooth fallen out of the mouth of the problem;
a clean beginning, cauterized and healing;
a girlish glint of wetness at the ends of a man’s hair

A Woman:
a wick; a man; a candle

A Man:
a candle; a woman; a wick;
a woman who cools quickly

Gold River:
a town where the houses are holes cut out of the fabric so the light can shine through

Murdering:
an extreme form of counting;
the opposite of counting

Gold River:
a dying river with restored flow

Gold River:
the last minutes of sleeplessness in which you seem to have solved the problem;
the layer of fat that seals and preserves the meat in a container

Gold River:
a disaster left off the list of disasters;
a disaster that shines when polished and set out on a tray with other disasters;
a disaster that flips a switch and turns on other disasters  


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