Diorama (map legend)

Snow:

comfort, the deep kind

that doesn’t always reach you

but is always streaming toward you

House:

where one lives and rests;

a matted area;

a pause or omission in a story

Factory:

an attempt, carefully measured and painted;

a modification made for everyone’s safety

Snow:

a serif font

Gold River:

a town that forms from wear like a blister

Scissors and/or cured rubber:

essential supplies;

the safest way to touch a story

Button, red:

a girl, sudden, or a sudden girlishness

Ribbon:

window light from across a field that you’ve wound around a clump of your hair

Button, silver:

a tooth fallen out of the mouth of the problem;

a clean beginning, cauterized and healing;

a girlish glint of wetness at the ends of a man’s hair

A Woman:

a wick; a man; a candle

A Man:

a candle; a woman; a wick;

a woman who cools quickly

Gold River:

a town where the houses are holes cut out of the fabric so the light can shine through

Murdering:

an extreme form of counting;

the opposite of counting

Gold River:

a dying river with restored flow

Gold River:

the last minutes of sleeplessness in which you seem to have solved the problem;

the layer of fat that seals and preserves the meat in a container

Gold River:

a disaster left off the list of disasters;

a disaster that shines when polished and set out on a tray with other disasters;

a disaster that flips a switch and turns on other disasters