A Poem by Laura Eppinger

Don’t Look

Don’t look for me
through the smog of the intersection
I won’t be there, not
even in the false aurora of light
pollution. Squint
all you want but I’ll be off
the trail, picking
thorns out of my hair.

No footfalls to hear
in the squawks in the din
of so much traffic over sewer grate,
in the thrum of the streetlight.
Oh no, surely, I am birdcalls instead.

No scent to catch
of bark and ash
where I see your nose is sniffing.
I am never
sanitized behind plastic, or scrubbed
quite too clean. So don’t waste
your time in the shopping line
hunting me.

When you want me, look for bare
feet up a dogwood, for a hint
of sand in a landlocked place: look
for riddles.

But one thing for sure: You’ll never find
me where I should be, in the place that’s been called
my place. Where the painted lips snicker where the heels
are on sale,
where the girls wail, Oh no
don’t look at me, don’t look,
Don’t look for me.



Laura Eppinger graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, USA in 2008 with a degree in Journalism, and she's been
writing creatively ever since. Her laptop screen got cracked during a
year in Cape Town, South Africa, so she composes in teeny, tiny
windows.