- Impermeable Material Suit
Katie Willingham, poetry
Crack in the mug the wine seeps into, a pink vein. How close it all feels.How close to the firehouse, how far from home. You bring the pumpsand I'll bring the glitter, but no one's willing to make the first sound and we can't reallygo back there. First you'd need a helmet with a visor you can steam upwith the warmth of memory as it clicks on. Damn switch—damn poisonous gas,what we've buried but it won't stay down: flecks of gold bubbling up in the stream bed.At this point, I'm ready to believe in any monster scientists dredge from the lakes,the ocean. I know how water forgives, closing around each spent wish and I'vecast a lot of tokens after my own reflection—blurry puppets I nameafter the girls I know who keep threatening each other—hair of the dog, they repeattheir bitter ritual of bad talk. Like teething, it eases something and I knowthe heart is a chamber best accessed by breaking down the door, but I don't wantto be the doctor or the nurse. I'm tired of counting the worth of things, whatyou have to use again right after it's washed: spoons, underwear. I knowif I count to five, the sixth truck is headed to the landfill, and how close, [End Page 342] how close I am to an accurate description, but I can't say how longthe pain will last, how long the fox and the doe might stare at each other acrossthis snowy plain, how dangerous the air might be if I dared take off this mask. [End Page 343]
katie willingham is the author of the poetry collection Unlikely Designs. She earned her MFA from the Helen Zell Writers Program, where she was the recipient of a Hopwood Award. Her poems can be found in such venues as Bennington Review, Poem-A-Day, Kenyon Review, West Branch, The Journal, Reservoir Lit, and others. She can be found most of the time in Brooklyn, NY.