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Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

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Third Empire

By Eliza Browning

So we walked further, into the deepening waters of the past.
Maybe the sky over America today is not quite so blue,

maybe the distance is less between the here and now:
all those hours tug at their chains, unwind like acts

of destruction. What will this world bring? In cities,
the temporary background to our living, forests resurrect

themselves in concrete. The lakes split their dams,
rivers untame and run their old routes, subway tunnels

flood and streets coalesce into islands, the real estate
of the modern- West 27th settled by a flotilla of ducks.

What new migrations will there be? Maybe the seasons
will shift and we’ll have blizzards in June, maybe March

leaves will paper the ground- what sound will that hold?
What can we buy from selling your hair? The trees

will swallow their dollars, the oceans will rise and
spit out their dead and we’ll live in the mountains again,

expatriates from the lacework of frames we once
called home, a symphony in steel and iron-stippled light.

 

Eliza Browning is a first-year English and Art History student at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She is a 2018 graduate of the Adroit Journal Summer Mentorship Program and a 2019 YoungArts Winner in Writing. Additionally, her work has been recognized by Hollins University, the Connecticut Poetry Society, the Eunoia Review, and the Rising Phoenix Review, among others.

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Issue Thirteen

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