after Bob Hicok 

 

Hands folded into empty. The need

to press & iron. Lines to read between & history

 

pried from each furrow. Once,

you laughed so bright the dry heat

 

mistook you for its maker, chased you across oceans

& back, the spray of sunlight playing hide & seek

 

among the seams of your forehead. Head

forward & your skin retreats within itself

 

the way a house collapses:

loosening. Rusty jawbone dried, eyelids

 

shuttered & weathered, the squeak of knees folded

into obsolete. The skin retreats

 

within itself, but new hills always manage

to worm their way out of the creases.

 

Note: “How Wrinkles Were Invented” is titled after “How Origami Was Invented” by Bob Hicok.

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MARIE UNGAR is a writer from Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is Co-Founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Sooth Swarm Journal. Marie’s work has been published or is forthcoming in Eunoia Review, Words Dance, and Moledro Magazine, among others.