Poetry by Laura Wilhelm. Runner-Up in the 2017 Manuscripts Poetry Contest with Alessandra Lynch

Wilhelm, Laura

English

Digital Commons @ Butler University

52Laura WilhelmAlopeciaI never told you how much I admired your scars. How I wanted to count them, trace them, map them on myself so we could read them by lamplight in your living room—a bottle of gin between us, our sober shadows staining canvas walls. We could watch them fade then struggle to remember where exactly they were. Study the skin stretched over our sternums, lost without the fibers’ direction.YPoetry Contest Runner-Up53I never told you how I felt that day in April. My conference heels clacked on the pavement. You had a story to tell. There was nothing domestic about us. Peeping sunlight struck the mulberry footprints you left on the carpet, and you looked at me like you could finally see that speck in your iris—the one I always looked for. Something both present and absent. You told me there was nothing wrong with your heart, and I told myself that I thrive in small spaces. I don’t need much. But I would have outgrown a mouse hole.

Alopecia

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4630&amp;context=manuscripts

Alopecia

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Digital Commons @ Butler University