Honorable Mention

Amber Brodie

The One Whose Name Was Writ in Water

I like to picture Keats on days like this.
Strolling through a teeming wood,
with a simple book, eyes upon the boughs.
A single raindrop falls on his buckle
as he breathes in the plump odor of Autumn.
At night, dark candles flicker upon his quill
as he composes with words that taunt him.

I'd love to show him what it's like now.

I imagine him coming through my back door,
opening my fridge, tasting the Cool Whip,
contemplating the tune of my laptop,
the constant vibrations of my cell,
lightly licking an orange pill.
He starts as the mail falls through the door,
burns himself on a forgotten hair straightener,
trips over misplaced wires, balled like a tumor.
He'd write a poem on my dry erase board
and stare at my bookshelf - 
thousands of titles jeering down at him:

There's nothing left!
"Oh" is too romantic,
"epic" is clichè.
Nice try, dipshit!

He'd drive himself past
the sanity of his pen,
longing for those tacit nights
when the mist twinkled
over frosty streams,
lightning tapped against the window,
and sighs cooed around
every peeling corner.

Contest Winner

Kate Sugar

Communion

My five-year-old, Christina was stolen
on June fourth. Stashed
in an earthen chamber beneath her
Sunday School classroom. Pews
of people chanting hymns while
My Christina imagines she's a chrysanthemum,
begging for blossom from the clay cavity
cradling her.
But there's no savior beneath the soil.

I site on the shotgun side watching
the waiting vineyards pray for grapes.
For the time being, they look like crucifixes
holding hands in dizzying rows.
And then, from underneath the armor of my skin,
the new baby starts to knock.

When the parish found My Christina planted
in the dust of the church,
they carefully delivered her through the dirt,
and when she crowned the surface,
and reentered the waiting world,
I stood there still, among the crowd,
craving her breaths or screams or cries.

But there was only bitter blue.
And there was no resurrection.
Mary, what a con artist, you fooled us all.

The new baby pounds again,
this time stronger and with purpose.
That's my messiah knocking--
I'm coming, Christina.

Honorable Mention

Sierra Jahoda

Weather-Worn Abs in the Town of Gym

It's a room full of whores.
Jackals watching themselves
through glass, licking
the grime-sweet sweat that rolls
off their lips and down
their perfect pewter faces.
Grunting with every lift,
moaning with exertion
like the aneurism-orgasm
they need. Some release
from their slip-cell looks,
one like the other, growling.
Man-ape, gorilla-boy,
and me:50lb lateral pull down.
You hoot testosterone,
load my body weight
in black blocks, n'call yourself a pussy.
Sure. I turn around,
do a straight-legged-bend-over
         because I know you're watching,
grab 15's, say
pussy comes with the package.