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Working: Vol. 4, No. 2 - Issue 14 Summer 2025

North Star (or, polaris: at ursa minor)

polaris is not a guide, but a fixed point.
          a rumor.
          and we are rumors

rumors made of cameras set to capture an aurora forecast. sketches of the residue of unobserved shooting stars, blossoming galaxies freezing on the road. post-modern street signs made of shelley, keats, and the food network. methodical roadways sliced in glaciers, mountains, southern lakes, the bay of fundy. tourist season chicken farmers. import craft beer chilled next to outdoor laundry dance lines drying in humidity. origin story dedications re-told for generations by missed chance lovers, estranged cousins, neighbors from fort mac we smoked on the roof with that summer.

rumors populating lakefront towns and villas. beacons dreaming of solitude and the search for vanished myth-makers.

Jared Wong
​lives Whitehorse, Yukon and within the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. He has a BA from Mount Allison University and an MA from Carleton University. His work has appeared with Horse Egg Literary, Impostor, 7Mondays, Bywords, and Filling Station.

Copyright © 2025 Empyrean Literary Magazine, L.L.C.
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