Elizabeth H. Winkler
Love Languages
My mother irons my pillowcases, smoothing their wrinkles into sharp edges—crisp. There is a poem in that. An essay, too, and maybe even a song. I want to tell her there’s no need; I don’t ever do this for myself and please don’t go to extra trouble and all this work won’t make any difference once I’ve slept on them. But this is a poem and a song and I know what I love you looks like, so I don’t say these things to her. Instead, I smile. I say thank you. I say my bed will look so beautiful.
Elizabeth H. Winkler (she/her) is a queer, Austin-based writer with a publishing day-job who calls Upstate New York’s Adirondack Mountains home. When she’s not cycling, making friends at estate sales, or exploring any city with canals, she writes about small beauties in the everyday—which is to say, she writes about love. Find her work in publications like t’ART, Business Insider, Austin American-Statesman, Wasafiri, and Chill Subs’ Thread Lit Mag, among others.