Emily Unwin
WALLPAPER
*an erasure and contrapuntal poem
We made flower crowns in their driveway
With honeysuckle and red wallpaper with black swirls
Sharp glossy leaves or am I confusing that with another bathroom?
From the two bushes framing
Their front door
We tried to tie No and
The flimsy stems remember
Together
Binding together,
A crown
For you, for me
Between and for us
From them undesirable
we prayed
but
The flowers simpered the wallpaper swarmed
And the leaves cut our scalps and he returned
But we would not go back inside
So we cut our callous-less fingers
To become temporarily invisible, what my mind chooses not to remember
nests
in my hair
makes small cuts against skull
seeps
into what I already know:
the spaces between must speak louder than the content