The Winner is . .
.
Scavenger Hunt by Donna Barkman . . .
Scavenger Hunt
The boy was devising a
game for his father
who might soon wake
from a nap, his third that day.
He called his son the
boy since the surgeon’s
knife had sliced most names from his memory. The boy
called his father Mr.
Gus when they were playing pirates.
In his best first-grade
printing, he wrote instructions on
small squares of paper
for Mr. Gus to find the treasure chest:
“Number 1: Go to the
Bathroom.” He smiled at his joke
and placed a second
note on the toilet tank: “Go to the Bedroom.”
a third: “Living Room.”
Yes. “Go to the Living Room.”
He knew his mother
would help Mr. Gus read the clues.
Number 4:
“Kitchen.”
Number 5: “Tree House
Ladder.”
Number 6: “Ship,” --
the derelict porch at the back of the house,
loaded with all that a
seagoing scalawag could hope for.
In time, Mr. Gus found the boy’s cherished booty: bits of
sea glass,
polished stones, foreign coins, and his great-aunt Jane’s
discarded pearls and brooches.
They’re yours, Mr. Gus. All for
you!
Mr. Gus loved the boy with all his heart and soul. He knew
where his heart was and could even find his pulse points,
but wondered obsessively about his soul: Was it there
behind his eyes, floating in the reservoir of tears?
Perhaps in his throat that clutched when the boy piped
sea chanteys they’d sung together. Maybe in his gut,
where he would shit it out as a last angry act. Or his lungs
where it could leave in the death rattle he knew was
approaching.
He tried to picture it hovering somewhere in a
never-never-land
until it was joined by the boy’s, decades hence.
He heard the boy calling and found him standing on the
toilet lid,
rummaging through the medicine cabinet above, pulling out
bottles and tubes and vials.
This is what the doctor will do, the boy shouted.
She’ll go through all the pills in her closet and way at the back,
she’ll find the ones that will fix your sickness, his voice
bounding from the
walls.
Their blue eyes met in a gaze of longing and
possibility. The boy
touched his father’s grizzled face, then he jumped to the
floor.
Wanna play swordfight, Mr. Gus? he asked. I’ll
find the cutlass,
and he ran from the
room.
Second Place is . . .
Visitation Tuesday by Denise Weuve . . .
Visitation Tuesday
Women in tattered sweat pants,
swallowed by thread-bare t-shirts nest
outside the visitor
entrance
waiting to see their papis,
babies,
better halves,
soul-inmates.
The chica beside me tosses her brass blonde
feathered hair, grabs the spaghetti
strap of my cerulean dress,
This ain’t a ball sister.
Don’t look at our men.
Her doorknocker earrings swing,
a caged bird’s empty
perch. There are no
windows inside.
No way for them to see airplanes
soar, with vultures and families
escaping this dried up town.
To the left a mother, her son
no longer legally a child, confined
behind 2 inches of Plexiglas,
cries, picks up the phone, toys
with the cord that links them.
He is the only detainee
unable to hold his visitor.
Her hand flutters, grazing the cage
that took 20 years
to build. In
Colorado, guards shoot
crows during target practice
then serve them for dinner to inmates.
Visitors are ruffled, frisked,
then released to an open room of their men—
the well-behaved, in white jumpsuits.
He is in orange
Baby
I have missed you so much.
You
drop off some cash at intake?
When
I’m sprung, we’re taking off for Cali.
We
got 30 minutes baby, talk.
Black wings rip through my shoulder
blades the color of desire
that cannot be contained in a state
issue plastic chair.
I glide above the prisoners
beak first against Plexiglas.
I snap, chirp a misunderstood subsong,
the guards ignore my caws
take aim.
Third Place is . . .
Mathematics by Christopher Hivner . . .
Mathematics
The distance traveled
on the plane
had value
for the crew
as far as
fuel consumption,
wear on the aircraft,
and the mood
of the passengers.
In row E,
window seats,
two fingers
to the lips
meant shh,
surrender
to the
captured time,
absorb the
turbulence
and
remember
it will end
some day.
The hotel
was ten miles
from the airport
on a road built
with ruts,
and held together by
dust and stones.
Midnight
crowed
like a
rooster
insane from
the heat,
row E,
window seats,
shed their
skin
reborn as
room 235,
two fingers
to the lips
meant shh,
this is all
we have.
Time travels
at a fixed speed
and cannot be altered,
you can pray
to the father, son,
or holy variable
of the long lost
algorithms,
time will not
respond.
Sun-heated
blue-green
water
carrying
bodies
on dappled
waves,
buoyant
layers
of
indirection,
two fingers
to the lips
meant shh,
we’re
almost done
Air speed is something
you don’t feel
when you’re in the air,
during flight
no one thinks about
flight altitude
or the precise combustion
of the modern
jet engine.
Real world
math
feels
leaden,
time
reversing
through
fluid
thick with
sleepless
thoughts
and
fissures in
the new
blood,
two fingers
to the lips
meant shh,
we have to
start over.
The Honorable Mentions . . .
The Traffic in Old Ladies by Mary Newell . . .
The Traffic in Old Ladies
I’m crossing
traffic on 8th and 34th
Looking for the
cross-town bus,
confused by the
numerous vectors.
Leaning against
a rail
casual, one leg
bent,
a bright-eyed
cocoa-toned young man
croons
solicitous:
"What's
bothering you?
Hey, cum'ere …"
I don't remember what he called me
but he called, again.
Suspecting him a player in
the traffic in old ladies,
I didn’t
answer. But his solicitation
propelled me to
the mirror back at home.
Twilight
softens the contours,
not the
intensity.
Face
Not the woman
who twice rebuilt a crumbling life
courageous and
persistent
(some would say
stubborn)
Nor the
adventurer friends tap for vicarious trips
(some would say
reckless)
Not the
bitterness that sometimes thins my optimist smile,
the worry that
tightens my jaw
(some would say
tense),
Nor the laugh
old friends can recognize
across a
teeming room
no…
the shocked
look of the curly-locked girl in amber silk
staring
confused
through
undulating water
wondering why
her lover
is holding her
under
this small rain by Alexis
Rhone Fancher . . .
this small rain
this small rain sambas on San Vicente
wanders through Whittier
mambos past Montebello
and East LA
this small rain moves like a Latina
over-plucks her eyebrows
drinks Tequila shooters
fronts a girl-band
this small rain works two jobs
dawdles in down pours
this small rain seeds clouds
this small rain drives to Vegas in a
tormenta
has a friend in Jesus
needs boots and a winter coat
in this drought-wracked city,
this small rain dreams of flash
floods,
depรณsitos, indigo lakes,
cisterns, high water,
Big Gulps, endless refills
in this drought-wracked city,
this small rain settles on the hierba
seca
sleeps under freeways
plays the lotto
is unlucky in love
this small rain longs to hose down
the highways
this small rain chases storms
this small rain has a tsunami in her
heart
this small rain kamikaze's
in the gutter
suicides on summer sidewalks
dreams of a deluge
that overflows the river banks
washes L.A. clean
in this drought-wracked city,
this small rain scans the heavens,
looking for a monsoon,
searching for su salvador in the
reclaimed desert sky.
yerba
seca: dry grass
tormenta:
rainstorm
su
salvador: her savior
deposito: reservoir
and . . .
Signs of the Apocalypse by Terri Simon . . .
Signs
of the Apocalypse
Last night, everyone on the planet
had a good night’s sleep.
This morning, everyone used their
turn signals
and were gleefully allowed to
merge.
No one used racial slurs,
sex was not warfare,
and warfare, finally,
was declared illegal.
The ridiculously rich
fed the poor, voluntarily,
and even fast-food chains
decided to pay a living wage.
Zeus and the Pope
sat down to tea.
And I opened up my hands
and let go.
The List of Other Semi-Finalists . . .
The Total Treatment by
William Doreski
Starving by
Barbara Bald
Portrait by
Terri Simon
Learning Spanish by
Denise Weuve
Sentinels by
Sharon Webster
Magic by
Jay Sizemore
Safe Haven by
Barbara Bald
When the Clock Strikes Midnight by Barbara Bald
Speed Dating in Plato’s Cave by
Bobby Steve Baker
I Sit Here by
Sharon Webster
Breaker Bar by
David Hardin
In Shadow by
Barbara Bald
Rain, Steam, and Speed –
The GreatWestern Railway by
David Hardin
