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  • Impermeable Material Suit
  • Katie Willingham (bio)
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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

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.

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