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The Runaway Conductor


by Nicolette Wong


wraps the memories of her in sawdust snow. Lips to wet asphalt, gold pins for tears on the statues across the altar. The gods have always been waiting. The sum of wind and divine will is a hollow mirror. In the mountain. At the flick of his wrist. Before the wrong train and the percussions in metal. For another man she raced through infinite wounds and fists in a monsoon forest. Hands tied to her lover's for a dance, a roulette of paper cranes exploding across the sky. Cascaded into the sea of black eyelashes. How they shutter around the glass bottom boat as he throws the frayed ropes. This is the country of an older name for her departure, an eternal maze he would never exit. This his reward for abandoning the train.
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