Alina Stefanescu
Pilgrimage: Wolf Bay, Alabama
The story of an end is told in unpunctuated comments. Things they wanted to say. Lint left in the bottom of a canvas shoulder bag. Start with a summery logo.
Sunburn and hot pink pavement. The story I want to tell about leaving mom’s white leather sandals at Wolf Bay when the sole fell off the right foot and the lightning drove us straight into the heart of a tropical storm. A pulse that beats from the outside in is a pulse I can feel, a joint I can articulate. Thunder is knuckles cracking.
The story I start and stop. The blog broke. Nothing is where it should be and the inside of me is out somewhere else. A place on the map left behind.
A map in the head of my mind where Milla dies of melanoma and the mole on her foot is a town I can’t take back. A sight I should have seen. All this living preventable by postcard.
The map is drawn over dice. I cannot cry for what my husband is losing. The girl with firecracker thighs. A heart she drums over. The story without cheeks or question marks. What he lost is mere terrain, a place we made from sticks and stones, a shelter overthrown by one wad of lightning.
