Jennifer H. Fortin holds an MFA in poetry from the New School, New York. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Court Green, Copper Nickel, BlazeVOX, GlitterPony, and others. She is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Bulgaria, 2004–2006)
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You can imagine the marrow in a way I can’t.
A team finally identified the coldest known
object in space, & it will not be surrendered
for our personal adornment, refuses to be precious
plaything turned grave, nothing buried below.
When someone close was dying, someone
else kept thanking me for everything. Let’s
now release our caught animals into the wild,
make the tissue of false-
hood interconnected with falsehood
a trampled lawn. I want to show you my collection that is
a response to what they call jewelry & how jewelry
is actually small sculpture. Basement stacks
of storage boxes mold tributes beyond plain view.
The ignorant pick the rarest things from long-grassed hills
& slide them into miniature splints, effectively
restricting posture to a lifelong gesture.
I store my wealth otherwise.
What they call jewelry is actually small sculpture
which I smolder with my rage
of motion, renouncing status. We ascend
from the norm to tourist curiosity, dine together
publicly, take note of the décor as it welds comfort
to shoulders’ translated clasps. Our sprawled oil
mass is more combustible than the team expected.
The most adept diagnostician is he who participates
in the diet no matter what, he who in peril
gradually serves my traditional, innermost heart.