Third Place Winner, January 2003 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

Third Place Winner, January 2003

THE EIGHTH DAY
Ken Ashworth
(The Writer's Block)

When he awoke he had no memory
of how the hand slid in, rummaged
the muck of his insides, or how fingers
pried loose sinew with a green-stick snap,

then the sound the wrist made retreating
like a mud stuck foot freed suddenly,
as gore covered, glistening with gristle,
drew out the bone. The bone lay in the sand

beside him, its curve a mimic of
a boar's tusk, and sensing
it might be hungry, he piled a palm frond
with papaya, guava, and Uula bark;
laid it down to see if it would eat.

He was drawn to it like one is to his own
excrement knowing once it was somehow
a part of him, and he got on all fours
to sniff its length, probed it with
a finger, sifted its hair, and knew

now that he would have to feed it,
listen to its yammering, even kill for it.
The bone stirred from sleep,
felt the heat of his body, the bole
of his back and wedged against him
wanting again the rhythmic didact
of blood pulse, the slow contraction
of lungs expiring; the wet dark.

Comments from the judges (River Styx editors): “We thought this was an intriguing treatment of the Adam/Eve-man/woman theme, with intense images, and appreciated the purely physical attraction, though we might have wished for psychological insights as well.”