Our cheeks were wadded up with jelly,

darkness was clotting in the sky

when you said

Everything I love makes noise.

Your ears brimmed with damp cotton—

no telling how many more walks would spool

around the snow-laden street corner downtown,

a small journey to pay for just one more vespertine melody

before home.

One day,

when nests of silence are erected in the place

that your fine hairs cozy up around,

we will really be all hands, you and I,

you against the eager, shadow-rimmed curtain

of the tongueless world.

Four hands, no ears, and two vintage mouths

folding like twin photographs weathered by sepia.

Today,

you send your nose bloodhounding after oud,

after bergamot,

after the exact aroma that will finally make a

mature bookworm out of your best friend.

Base notes, mid notes, top notes,

flying off the skin like sheets from an overworked printer,

settle into the cart.

Sound, with its cotton overcoat wrapped tight,

leaves a foot in the door for inbound scent.

One day,

as we smack our sticky lips for old times’ sake,

as the pulse escapes steaming from hollow neck

and limber wrist,

you will tell me something different.

All hands, all shadow puppets,

you will say instead

Everything I love smells familiar.

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Kat Mulligan is a second-year Concordia student hailing from Richmond, Virginia. In her free time, she enjoys writing poetry, learning languages, and reading.