2021 Poetry Winner: "A Thing Lost" by Jillian Dunlay
Thumbnail photo credit: Matt (@matty10), obtained and licensed through Unsplash
A Thing Lost
How I wish to move as rivers do,
Around trees and valleys, where lovers wallow,
Where broken men come to wash away their sins.
I want to heal the souls with hearts such as my own.
But the birds have flown south for the winter,
And the wind not a breeze but biting at my knuckles
Just enough to let the blood seep through the cracks.
The running red makes me wary of you.
You’re there when the leaves change.
They crunch under my feet like crepe paper,
And it makes me yearn for what’s not there:
A thing lost, a war story forgotten.
It’s the days like today— when the autumn air
Twines my sister’s ruby hair into a nest of cardinal feathers—
And she laughs, because she doesn’t yet know.
She doesn’t know of storms like you.
Soon the rain will wash the color from her words,
And her hands will be stained crimson as my own.
For he’ll be nothing more than a transparent sense of magic,
And a chill down her spine she cannot rid.
Touchstone Undergraduate Creative Writing Awards are an annual award series open to current undergraduate students at Kansas State University. In each of the following genres: poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction, two submissions are chosen by the editors at Touchstone. Winner in every genre receives a cash prize of $75, and the runner up receives $50.
Jillian Dunlay (she/her) is from Overland Park, Kansas. She is a first-year student at K-State studying English and Secondary Education. Jillian published her debut novel Untamed in 2017 and published her first poem “Just a Driveway” in the 2015 edition of Elementia Literary Magazine. She is currently writing a children’s book for the non-profit Moxie’s Mission and expects the book to be published in 2021. Outside of writing, Jillian loves tutoring and spending time with friends.