When the Wolves Stay Quiet | Ann V. DeVilbiss

Ann V. DeVilbiss has had work in BOAAT Journal, Crab Orchard Review, The Maine Review, Pangyrus, and elsewhere, with work forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly. She is the recipient of the 2017 Betty Gabehart Prize in poetry and an Emerging Artist Award from the Kentucky Arts Council. She lives and works in Louisville, Kentucky.     They Call Us GirlsDo you remember how it felt?Time slow as bubblegummelted on a sidewalk, every secondcharged with the unbearable weightof our swollen hearts,coltish stumble of new limbs,our bodies like secrets to be learnedslowly, first wolf whistle with its shrill noteof fear and the power inside fear.The other girls taught me how to knit ona tight smile, how to ignore the needleand use the blood, spelling wordscast up and down my armsin grape-scented magic marker,pretending the idea of indelible,the quilled polka dot of purple edges,new shapes quickening from out of the dark.We learned how to hide things,became like changelings, foreignand reckless, wan