The Woman in the Library

by Sulari Gentill

I am a bricklayer without drawings, laying words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, allowing my walls to twist and turn on whim.

The story of her life etched on her skin… She’s like a walking book. Patterns and portraits and words. Mantras of love and power. I wonder how much of it is fiction. What story would I tell if I had to wear it on my body?

But they all smile while they talk—that’s the difference, I think, that’s what makes it American.

Words are put down in solitude; there is a strange privacy to those disclosures.