2012
Winners
- [First Place] The Moon Is So Smart by Andrea Henchey
- [Second Place] Texas by Mark Wisniewski
- [Third Place] Personal Genomics by Barbara Perez
The Moon Is So Smart
by Andrea Henchey
The moon called and said
she wants her own light. Said
if it’s called “Thin French Voyeur”
don’t watch it. Said the delivery man
was right. on. time.
On nights like these, we struggle
to find new ways to say “nights like these,”
struggle to avoid the word struggle.
When that song came on the radio,
you turned it up and said, “Let this
be the anthem for our bad choices”
and I thought of Bad Choices as a place as in:
Bad Choices, Montana, and I wondered
what it must feel like to be mayor there
and then I remembered that I am.
I like how “bright” means both “light”
and “smart” and wonder why people are dim
but never dark witted. The moon is so smart.
The French girl is in the shower
and I can’t help but watch.
I guess that’s what the moon meant.
Texas
by Mark Wisniewski
I pulled out
the purple down coat D had stolen from her undoubtedly
alcoholic mother but didn’t use because Texas
rarely got that cold & the unused
hangers chimed & from the bedroom where the wine
also was D yelled “what are you
hanging in there?”
“nothing,” I said I hugged
the coat until the chiming stopped thought
about saying more but guessed
what she’d come back with & decided saying
nothing was best
I opened
the apartment door “where are you going?” D called
“outside” “why?” “to put something in the car” I waited
for silence to punctuate the conversation stepped
onto the stoop closed the door the runaway
was still lying on the limestone stairs & now
again
she was watching me
she hooked hair behind her ear as I
walked over the untrimmed grass toward her “I brought you
a blanket of sorts” I said
“of sorts?”
“yes
it’s actually a jacket or a coat I guess but you can
use it as a blanket or a kind
of sleeping bag”
she didn’t move just kept watching I hugged
the waist
of the coat “I mean if you’re
cold” I said & she
still didn’t move so I lay the coat
on the grass near her
“if you aren’t” I said “I’ll leave it here anyway--in the event
you get
cold before morning” I sound like
an old man I thought I turned & walked
quickly toward the apartment “you must not be
happy” she said I looked over
my shoulder & stopped
“what?”
“I was just saying I thought you weren’t
happy”
my throat felt tight
& I wasn’t
sure why
I wanted
to answer without my
voice cracking
Personal Genomics
by Barbara Perez
Honeyed saliva amassed in a vial, and one by one
the world became family: a soldier in Killeen,
an orphaned woman in Guanajuato, a priest
in Madrid, the Tuaregs of the Sahara—too many,
too far in the line to bring home but all close
enough to call kin. At the bus stop, I hear
an elderly man whistle just like our father did.
I’m wary of everyone I pass—a second cousin,
an uncle-through-marriage disowned? Until now,
I hadn’t known the clerk at the corner store
was lost to us, but he has our father’s cheekbones,
his nose. The girl in the crosswalk, too, our great-
grandmother’s curls. She holds her hand out to a boy
who laughs and tantrums like I did at his age,
and I watch them disappear beneath a line of trees
whose branches resemble fingers, resemble arms.
