Fiction & Poetry Contests

She starved herselfthinking about grace.How difficult it was

to be nothingbut flesh: prickly, contrarious,pretending to get by

Your dead father dogs youlike the white mutt that roams

along the fishing holes and walksthe edge of gravel roads, sometimes

at a trot, most times slow,but with purpose, muscle and sinew

There’s something to be saidabout standing on the center lineof a bustling four-lane road,cars skimming by in front and behind meas I watch my stainless steel thermosbumble along toward the opposite curb

First, find the reliquary:Collect the bones of the mammoth,regurgitated onto the shoreby the agitate cycle of thawing permafrost,rinse clean by the frigid lake’s lapping,swelled in a jumble of reeds