Winner: Mother Sea

 

by Zeljka Marosevic

 

When we were children we poured out gifts from our small hands. Shells from the sea shore, smooth stones. Tiny birds. And from our mouths she sells sea shells on the sea shore she sells sea shells on the sea shore. They were sirens, calling us back. We fell for them, tumbled and scraped knees but they picked us up. No they were mermaids, the smell of the sea in their long hair tumbling, unfurling waves. The first time we touched the dead. But they were alive then they were singing humming our beginnings sea shells and she sells and sea smells and she smells of the sea. Worth all of our offerings, for she smiles at me. 

 

 

 

Runner Up: A Prose Poem

 

by Edward Herring

 

Dawn dawns with the sun in one’s stomach. Heavy turns on an axis of rib carpet-burned by one’s best friend’s floor. Heaving, beleaguered, one eye shrinks to all that matinal stuff, the other gives a wink. Spurned churn of a whirligig tummy, turmeric-tanned and something circular-brown swilling. Must be, eternally turning to the tune of night, something something. Gurning, groaning, alone and moaning. Alienate alien duvet, limp kick of the sheet, seething colon and on one’s feet. Creeping creak through the sleeping, nuzzled, breathing, teething stuff, who knows what. One spends a lifetime getting the door latch going. Green, nervy and low. Door-draft on sweat patch, slow to task, muscles preening the gutrot on the grow. A Beige Coiling Drop. One rushes, perturbed-stir weighing, shoe-stuffed stumble and hoping, freighted belly-mush, cackling heel in honking step-stress - one wends to the flush. Grimaced gut, air-tight hold until the door is shut. Lower vestige torn down, double check the lock, seat clapped in crown. Behold and lo one lets the contents go! A soft scud on the porcelain white. One sights outside an ear of snow.

 

 

 

Second Runner Up: Struck by James Coghill