InterBoard Poetry Competition

LAST WEEKEND IN MAINE
      Hannah Craig
      (The Sharpened Word)

Sleek fist-eared hounds
paddle home along the shore.

They bay from the bank,
like horns through
silvered slow ash
and fall-down basswood

I cant their names
as a ritual of protection;
row out for oysters,
cut clinging kelp
from dark-eyed stones.

I deny that there is ice
or even the memory of ice,
but my hands are blue,
stung by small stars.

The dogs shake
free of wet,
their deep-earth scent
thick as acorns and red leaves.
They lie down near the fire,
swim
across a dream
where the sea
never ends.

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About the InterBoard Poetry Competition
Archive of IBPC Winners
3rd Place Winner, January 2002

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