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CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED!
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1st Place
Cats, Remember E.V. Noechel Remember the drowning, young rough edged hands and drawstring bags, the burn of summer evening sunlight on burlap, thrashing elbows and knees of eight siblings and a mother, growling, angrier than a hiss. Remember the stomach drop plunge into cold still water and the frantic swish of claw cutting faces, ears, paws, and the cool feeling of blood drawing away. Remember the first to go down sudden stillness, an involuntary twitch. Remember when it was the one above you, her weight like a fist, pushing pushing. Pushing weight without movement, just the bearing down, the still heart and heavy ribs above you like the collapse of a tired house under the dark green weight of kudzu vine. Just one kitten lump and then another, smaller, more compact. There is no sound, only the silent dis- solve of another lifetime disposed. Remember this, when they feed you. Remember this, when the collar clicks on, when they stroke your kitten ears and pretend to love your slick satin coat and the white iron bones beneath. Remember this, when it is time for warm baths or revolution. |
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2nd Place
The Northside Café Francisco Aragón Revisiting Berkeley, 1999 The Northside Café, where we would meet, boarded up; a decade since I felt connected, since sunlight glimmered through flowers etched in glass; recalling it now: your front door, hallway where we embraced that August afternoon, me headed for Spain the next morning, and you set to live another two semesters… I breathe your absence in, have felt it all these years, my focus blurred— no north, no compass, lost remembering John K. Walsh |
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3rd Place
Poem Janell Moon Fifteen years in shattered sheets, finally I tore my body from a lie I couldn’t finger. I couldn’t say my husband didn’t have passion that wouldn’t be my business or my truth. I left because my passion was covered with the heel of America’s secrets, locked chests holding unspoken lives. My child watched to see how crazy I’d get, wanted away to his father’s house where people were watching television not knocking cobwebs from corners. I thought my friend said she had canaries in her mind but she said like canaries in the mine we both married before anyone talked about women being gay. I think of my brother with angel sickness and understand canaries better but love Van Gogh for taking music lessons to help his yellows sing. We all exist the way we exist. Love comes in nouns, the solid things I can name and touch. My son. This bowl. This woman, Patricia. |
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Comments? Send an e-mail to: editor@gertrudejournal.com
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