First Prize:
Alexandra Isfahani- Hammond
Tribe of Relics
My grandmother’s pearls lie in a corner of the living room
Not recklessly strewn but the reverse
Caring too much, I am unable to release them, constantly delaying the decision for another day
For weeks they remain at the edge of a sad “maybe pile”
I’ve been trapped inside my apartment by webs of memories
Like sea kelp fastening an oyster to the ocean’s floor
Could a poem be a place-keeper? A holding site? A place to store them?
I hope this poem is large enough for everything I need to safe-guard here
My father’s tattered wallet
The dollar I left inside in case he comes back, needing bus money
The tiny teal box he guarded, edges tattered: his mother’s trinkets
A broken earring, blackened amulet, brooch from a bygone era
Treasured
My mother’s elementary school supervisor
Iranians always discover lost loves in Tehrangeles and she did, too
I’ve never met her, can’t recall her name. Why keep her photos?
Torn corners, be apertures. Paper: return to poplar, a woodland arises
Scraps, become schools
Kindly guides, emerge from ripped edges
The dozens of photos I removed, discarding their frames: each screw loosened inducing shame
When my mother died I had her portrait enlarged: eyes locked on the camera to look after me
Imposing enough to revoke her vanishing
But her expression didn’t affirm me, much less soothe
Her smile remained, ignoring my pain
That’s when I learned photos could be obstacles
So I’ll scan her for safekeeping: a jpeg, fine particles all around me
And keep her large dark eyes inside these lines
Locking gazes inside phrase mazes: word puzzles to stave off longing
Second Prize:
Ruth Roberts Owen
Wish
I thought of telling you
I’d be in town today
but then I feared
that you would want to meet me
and that having met me
you would
take me
home
to your
little
stone
cottage
and unlock the door
and
leading me into the dark there
strip me bare as a coat hanger
and lay me down upon the rag rug on the floor
as gently as a wreath upon a grave,
and fold your arms around me
as the fleece folds around the sheep
and that I would forget me.
And I feared
that when my fever broke,
you would place your palm upon my brow
with the tenderness of a mother
and treasure me up
as your butterfly Blodeuwedd,*
and have delight in me.
And that
is why
I didn’t tell you
that I’d be in town today.
*Blodeuwedd is a woman from the Mabiniogi, the old Welsh myths, and was a woman made of flowers, who being created of raw nature, was without moral values and was unfaithful to the husband for whom she was made.
Joint Third Prize:
Estelle Price
My mother and the Adar Rhiannon
It hasn’t happened yet but maybe,
just beyond my vision, a trio of blackbirds perch
as still as tombstones.
And maybe if I turn my face towards
her death, thirteen years since we last spoke,
their throats will yawn and sing. And even though
the birds, like my mother, are near yet far
their song will warm grief’s toes,
trill me to sleep, as if in my childhood bed.
And if a dream is permitted to be true,
she will rise again, stroke my grey hair and kiss
my wrinkled lids, will stroll
around the life I’ve nailed together since
she left. She’ll read a fairy tale
to a great-grandchild who shares her name
and listen to my seven-year-husband practice
Dowland on his lute. And when birds
fly off and music stops, I’ll wake to see
her mixing bowl set ready on the worktop
her cowslip painting no longer crooked on the wall
and know that she has not forgotten me.
Note
In the Mabinogion, the Adar Rhiannon are three magical birds, whose song can wake the dead and lull the living to sleep.
Joint Third Prize:
Denisse Vargas
Se Trata
De alquilar el precipicio
hasta que un día cedamos al vértigo.
Concebir palabras que describan
esta urgida gana de encontrarse.
Ver de frente al destino y negarse
a seguir su afilada aguja del tiempo.
Intentar, aunque no sea
absolutamente necesario.
Se trata del aire que irrumpe en los pulmones
y de intuir qué hacer
con su rugido en el cuerpo.
Entregarnos al misterio del árbol florecido
que se clava sin dudar en el cielo nublado.
Ser nosotras las que despierten la mañana,
vestirse para la luz que se alza.
Liberar los pies de los zapatos,
esa cárcel que domina los pasos,
dejar de acarrear las medias sucias
en los ojos de otros,
en la piel del vecino.
Se trata de creer en el conjuro
de cuerpos ante el horror del mundo,
ser una en el cuerpo del mundo,
disolviendo los mitos de su disparidad.
Y en noches que aúllan a los sueños,
parirlos como un sol
camuflado en las nubes
desde adentro, con las vértebras, empujando.
