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2005 Winners
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Category 1
Paul Kahn
First Place
Paul Kahn
Auburndale, Masssachusetts
KATHARINE'S ROOM*
In Katharine's room I like
undressing.
In Katharine's room I crawl out of the shroud of my
shame.
I watch her watching me
and drink encouragement from her
eyes.
In Katharine's room I shiver in my briefs.
I lie on her
table, and she covers me with a sheet.
I pulse between relaxation and
anticipation.
My blood is like mercury,
charting the temperature of
my desire
for Katharine's touch.
In Katharine's room I submit to
her hands.
I close my eyes. Like a cat I drowse in the lap of her
care.
My body opens to her like an old, locked diary,
the spine
cracking and the dry pages exhaling their secrets.
She reads me with
her hands.
In Katharine's room I float, unafraid of gravity.
She
is the salt mother.
She will support me.
In Katharine's room I
do not hate my body anymore.
In Katharine's room I am happy to have
this body
that can feel her friendly heat.
I am happy to let her
sculpt me
with her kindness and her hands.
She remakes me into
something close to beautiful.
In Katharine's room I do not have to
be
only a talking head--all brain and tongue and greedy eyes.
I do
not have to talk at all
There is nothing to say. Words make categories
—
harsh lines between the spirit and the flesh,
between the
permissible and the forbidden.
Katharine's hands, sliding down my body,
blur categories.
In Katharine's room I don't have to decide
what
anything means. *Previously displayed in an exhibit called
"Political Bodies: On Show, Showing Off" presented by Communities Against
Rape and Abuse.
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Barbara Crooker
Second Place
Barbara Crooker
Fogelsville, Pennsylvania
VAN GOGH'S CROWS*
My son has been pacing, wringing his fingers,
flicking from news to
weather channels,
as a hurricane moves up the coast.
His panic is
palpable, lurks in the murky air
pushed up from the tropics ahead of
the storm.
Nothing we say can calm him, as he wears a groove in the
rug.
I think of Van Gogh, those wheat fields under the pulsing
sun,
the scornful voices of the crows, the writhing blue sky.
Think how hard
the simplest action must be
when those voices won't leave you
alone,
when even the stars at night throb and gyrate.
My son says
his skin crawls, his back is always itchy.
What would it be like to
lift from this earth,
rise above a sea of molten gold, scratch
your
name on the blue air, "caw caw caw,"
be nothing more than a black pulse
beating,
rowing, your way back to God?
*Previously published in The Drunken Boat. It will appear in her
forthcoming book Radiance (Word Press), due out in July 2005.
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Anna Evans
Third Place
Anna Evans
Hainesport, New Jersey
ELAINA
Elaina clings to my hip like a monkey
as I hop to the Springsteen
beat
of a late-August party that refused to die
with the bleeding
sun. Her mother watches
from the September that has misted her
vision
since the day they prescribed the special
kindergarten.
Elaina's bird-bone light and giggles
as I tip her
upside-down. I can't shake
the feeling: when we stop dancing
summer
will be done. Her blonde-streaked hair
trails the floor. "More, more!"
she shrieks.
We are all dancing in the dark. Elaina's eyes
spark
like fireflies, and I'm the light
they're fixed on tonight. But I
cannot dance
her down her life, or stretch this summer forever.
I
unpeel her thin brown thumbs,
send her twirling toward her
mother.
Elaina grins under her own strange sun.
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Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Third Place (tie)
Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Tehama, California
PICTURES FOR AN ARTIST*
You need to know
what a real mastectomy
looks like so you can
draw
that nude I commissioned. So,
after strong English tea
has got us in the mood,
I strip to my skin
on the sun-filled,
tree-lined
deck. You snap pictures
of that scar: the dented skin
over ribs, riffled puckers
over sternum, the bluish cast
of
flat skin stretching
both sides of the scar.
You click the
shutter.
We laugh. I lounge
on a wood bench dotted
with bird
droppings.
Drape an antique silk shawl—
soft green with foot-long
fringe—
across my jean-clad, naked-
breast body. I don't care
what happens to photos,
drawings, reputation,
if someone calls
the cops.
I just sprawl there
in late afternoon warmth,
silk
whispering over
my flesh, the one taut
nipple, draw a deep
breath,
forget the camera
and smile.
*Originally in her book AfterWords
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Category 2
Dan WilkinsFirst Place
Dan Wilkins
Luckey, Ohio
HOW?*
The door closes
And in the still and silence of my office
The
roll of the chair
Creaks and cricks the hardwood floor.
My son, not Two
From the distance
Squeals!
And I mean
Sque-e-els with delight!
Running on stubby, falling forward legs,
Hands still raised for
balance,
He knows I am here.
He knows I am home.
Suitcase down.
Briefcase down.
Car keys down.
Shoulders aching
from the drive.
Ears still popping from the flight.
I drink in the
color and smell of home
And I wait.
I await the smile and the
touch
that mean so much
and instantly, magically melt
to the
"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy"
Thumping closer,
Thumping louder,
Thumping
faster
Through the kitchen and the hall.
Knowing nothing of inertia
He turns the corner
With the grace of
an Albatross;
Like a cartoon.
With an Ert, Ert, Ert,
Of skidding
foot
And groaning concentration,
He barely misses the Jade
And
slams into my knees
With a slap of meaty hands
And a triumphant
"Ahhh" of teeth
and wild hair.
I bend down close to smell his head.
How do I tell him…
This beautiful boy?
This Beautiful,
breathless, excitable boy,
That tonight I will hold and put to bed
When all is said,
And all are fed and done.
How could I tell him.
How will I ever tell him
That to some in this world
I am not
worthy.
That to some in this world
I am quite expendable.
That there are those in this world
Who do not know me
(not like
he does)
That there are those in this world
Who do not see me
{not like he
does)
That there are those in this world
Who would rather have me dead
than Dad.
*Previously published in Four-Sight by Dave Hingsberger (Diverse City Press).
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Lateef H. McLeodSecond Place
Lateef H. McLeod
Oakland, California
THE ABSENCE OF ROUTINE
"Just swallow"
They say to me,
And I really do try
Cuz I be
wearing tight fits
And drool leaves obvious marks on it
You know I
try to look suave 24-7
So there shouldn't be a problem
With me
swallowing
Right?
Well I have to remember
To swallow
Every
minute
Of every hour
Of every day
So when I roll down
The
street
I swallow
Whenever I talk to someone
I swallow
When I
exercise
I swallow
When I go to school
I swallow
Cuz I don't
want
Anyone to see me drool
I heard from others
That it makes
me
Look gross
It is not my intention
To gross anyone out
So I
try
Like a mad man
To swallow
I
(swallow)
Try
and
(swallow)
Consciously do something
(swallow)
That everyone
else
(swallow)
Does unconsciously
(swallow)
And my moronic
former attendant
(swallow)
Can't
understand
(swallow)
Why
(swallow)
Can't
I
(swallow)
Learn to swallow
(swallow)
All the
time
(swallow)
It is like
(swallow)
Giving him a
ball
(swallow)
Telling him
(swallow)
To throw
it
(swallow)
In the air and catch it
(swallow)
Every 15
seconds
(swallow)
And yell at him
(swallow)
When he drops the
ball
SWALLOW! Return to top
Suzie SiegelThird Place
Suzie Siegel
Tampa, Florida
SCANS*
Scan me.
Can you read the dis-ease?
Drink will reveal me,
the white-chalk taste
lining a crime-scene body
In goes the needle.
Shoot the dye into my veins.
Shoot the die;
I'm on a roll.
I'm in a role.
Radiate me, read me,
an illuminated
book.
I'm told, "Hold your breath."
I think, "I have been."
In the
stillness I hear the whirr
of a thousand wings,
angels dancing on
the point of a needle.
"Breathe."
Shadows and spots
mark my
fate
on a film, just a film
between life and death.
I can see
through it;
I can see the light behind it.
*First published as part of the Sarcoma Series by the Liddy Shiver Sarcoma initiative.
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