Inner Loop Contest Poetry Winner: “Water Lilies”

To read about the three Inner Loop Contest winning entries, and interviews with the winners and judge, read Nicole Schaller’s coverage on the contest. 

“Water Lilies Do Not Have Surface Leaves During Winter”

Adolescent girls root for you,
extend scarred arms

toward cloying curls,
angling for ankles.

Ungently you lay
un-resting on the surface,

always about to drown,
a daisy for every nosegay,

half in love with death.
Madness is all we get

from you, Ophelia.
Our ragged fingernails

dog-ear your pages, hearts assailed
by crushes, rashes, braces.

We wish to disappear
into wisps of verse like you.

Instead we grow
up, gasping for living things.

Follow Gold Weinberg @AlysonGWeinberg on Twitter + @alyson_gold_weinberg on Instagram.

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