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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue of cc&d (v242) (the March / April 2013 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Guilt by Association cc&d 2013 collection book		get the 374 page Jan. - June 2013 cc&d magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

In a Glass House

Oz Hardwick

Everything looks smaller inside
as you drift from room to room,
testing boundaries, searching
for the heart of words, a detail
to match your long imagination.

Books line walls, obscuring
cobbled streets, slate sky,
wooden passers by,
lines of tourists snaking
across the grass, waiting

to see their own reflections
in the dead poet’s words.
At last you find it,
perfectly small, fragile
beneath glass eaves.

The air smells familiar:
pipe tobacco, tomatoes,
paraffin, polish. Your eyes
sting with forgetfulness
shaken loose from years until

catching the light, you discover
a tiny imperfection, scratched
lightly at first, later more firmly,
a dead man’s name,
while, on tumbling shelves,
books catch flame.

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