THE RESULTS ARE IN!!!!!

The Winner is . . . 

My Mother's Tongue by Barbara Bald . . .

My Mother's Tongue

She used to stick it out for me, displaying
the deep cleft down its middle, irregular bumpy sides
and tiny cracks like those on misfired porcelain.
She'd extend it, roll it into a long tight tube, then
flatten it to reveal its blotchy red surface.

We'd stand before the bathroom mirror, comparing
the hated old tongue to my young flawless, flat one
and I'd listen to her berate it and whatever else she saw
as her other imperfect features.

It was a tongue that could slice with Samurai precision.
Who the hell do you think you are? pierced phone lines
when my father's fishing buddies woke her at 4:00 am,
asking for Captain Joe.

Would you mind moving over? she'd hiss
at the churchgoer who refused to slide into the wooden pew,
causing me to cower in teenage humiliation.

The tongue had no respect for boundaries.
With words, You didn't let him touch you, did you?
or Where does your boyfriend stay when he visits?
it would pry into private areas where it had no place.

Mostly, her tongue would judge --
the friend who wore too many bracelets,
the spaghetti sauce that never tasted as good as hers.
You don't know how to dance, do you? she would notice aloud.
The tongue always called a spade more than a spade.

I had planned to use my young tongue to spread rose petals,
to help polish those who wanted to see their own shine.
If my tongue flapped in unkindness, I hoped
it would be a butter knife rather than a sword --

Today, with my sixty-year old tongue extended to my dentist,
I learned I have what's called a geographical tongue.
The red splotches and tiny fissures of its surface resemble
Pangaea-like plates that react to spicy meals.

Remembering words, I never asked her to be born.
If you don't like it, go home, cruelties I once hurled
at my mother and others, I cringed when he said it,
It's hereditary, you know.
You have your mother's tongue.

Second Place is . . . 

ROYGBIV by Kim King . . .

ROYGBIV 

The yellow bloomed a week after the biopsy --

blurring into the indigo and violet bruises, a dab

of cadmium paint, like in Matisse's Woman with a Hat,

her solemn, green-tinged face and down-turned mouth

glowered under a garish feather and baubled chapeau.

Her squared collar, like my cotton hospital gown,

over-sized and unadorned, concealed her inner wounds.

Mine were under a lacey bra, protected with steri strips

and bandages, but no artist was at the easel.  Instead,

doctors weighed "high risk lesion" and "rare

in zero point zero four percent" with "prevalence

of early tubular carcinoma," while I balanced

a prism refracting white

light in Mr. Grant's seventh grade class,

reciting the colors of the spectrum, in order.

Third Place is . . . 

Just Outside of Bowler City by Daniel Meltz . . . 

Just Outside of Bowler City

my first teacher was my father

a sarcastic figure in underpants

he taught me how to

idolize and instigate

my mother

ran from him

she brushed her hair till it bounced

she used

the hairbrush as a weapon

she loved

the smell of the future

but she never stepped into it

my sister showed me her workbook

a multiplication table and 

spelling lists

she turned on cartoons

heckle and jeckle

two angry crows

she told me about her teachers at school

the teacher with the swinging can

the teacher with the blubbery neck

the one with the 

swishing stockings

the one with the 

tangerine lipstick

we shared a bedroom with a kidnap window

we stage-whispered at daybreak

biting the cream out of cookies

we broke bobby pins in two

and scratched every inch of a crap credenza

The Honorable Mentions . . . 

Rescue by Patricia L. Goodman . . .

Rescue

On the wooded steps of a Nature Center

I find a plastic eye -- the flat kind

with the pupil that moves if you shake it.

It lies there staring.  I imagine

the toy it came from, a teddy bear

perhaps, who now sees the world

in monovision.  When my childhood

teddy's eyes wore off, Mom replaced them

with shoe buttons.  He and I saw each other

differently then, grew accustomed.

After my husband died and I began

my climb from despair, I rescued Teddy

from the back of a dark drawer.

We cried.

and . . .

When to Tell Him That You Love Him by Denise R. Weuve . . .  

When to Tell Him That You Love Him

Wait

until he is in the kitchen

cleaning lunch dishes and you

are walking away.

Make sure the water runs heavy and loud.

Mouth the words

never daring to let the sound escape

as he leaves the table to pour

another cranberry

vodka

to keep you under.

Sign it distinctly

as he hunches over to check

the air in the tires

explaining for the 8th time

how you can do this yourself.

Etch it in the sky

when he is looking downstream

waiting for Salmon to hook on his line

so he can show you the dinner

you make him throw back.

Lock it away

in an old shoebox, fill it

with the paper bag he brought Dansville oranges

to you in.  The one that said

"Don't touch.  Just hers."

The List of Other Semi-Finalists . . . 

E=MC²                                                            by henry 7. reneau, jr.                                                                  

Wood Lake Battlefield Site                               by Dana Yost                           

All Hallows Eve                                                by John J. Brugaletta                                                   

Ice Fisher                                                         by Judith Neale                                                      

Early December                                                by William G. Davies, Jr.                              

An Accident of the Imagination                          by Karla Linn Merrifield      

Two Sides of a Window                                    by D.M. Aderiibigbe

Ars Poetica                                                       by Linnea Harper                                        

Tsunami Zone                                                    by Linnea Harper            

Glamour in the Folds Off-Centre                        by Michael Luke

Midwestern Selkie Girl II                                   by Jennifer Schomburg Kanke

A Mosquito                                                       by Sarah Ghoshal

Don’t Call Her California                                    by Wendy Thornton

How Ian and I Learn                                          by Joan Goodreau

Blessings of Witnessing and Experience               by Judith J. Katz

L’Anse Aux Meadows                                       by Angela Harrison                              

A Winter’s Day                                                  by Michael Magee

Heredity                                                             by Denise R. Weuve