A blush of night-bloom.
That exquisite last word.

In the type of family that could afford
To fall apart, a young girl grows
More hands than things to cling to. She’s

Just thumbnail innocence, motel white
Wallpaper thighs and perforated silence
In glitter flecked too-open hands.

In a scrapbook she redeems family like prayer.

See page 7:

     When she was only her father’s trembling hand.
     Repression as spectacle.
     Her mother’s long goodbye.

See Page 12:

     Her home’s silent era.
     A way to make love with their eyes closed.
     Her mother’s short sigh.

She tells each scrap the things
She used to tell them.

There are only 6 pages left now, and she’s said everything.
But not this.

—–

Ian Campbell Hill is a 24-year-old writer from Wisconsin now living in Colorado. They’ve been published in The Meadow Literary Journal and Birds Piled Loosely.