Issue > Poetry
Alison Hicks

Alison Hicks

Alison Hicks is the author of poetry collections You Who Took the Boat Out and Kiss, a chapbook Falling Dreams, and a novella Love: A Story of Images. Her work has appeared in Eclipse, Gargoyle, Permafrost, and Poet Lore, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Green Hills Literary Lantern. She is founder of Greater Philadelphia Wordshop Studio, which offers community-based writing workshops.

The Wanderer

A storm has brought down the last of the leaves.
You look out the window.
Drudgery settles over the bare hillside.
Your mother brings home a paperback
cover faded browning edges
author you've never heard of.

You're fifteen, the same age as the narrator.
His friend disappears for three days,
comes back with a story about a château in the woods
doors and windows thrown open blazing light
men and women arriving in costume.

They pull him inside dress him in a silk vest and mask.
There is dancing and they let him dance.
He wanders through rooms as if he's dreamed them.
A young woman playing the piano tells him her name.

The map he draws does not show the way back.

You never read it in the original.
As if what came through your fingers might be undone.

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