Honorable Mentions, May 2008 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

Honorable Mentions, May 2008

FOUNTAIN *Douglas Hill* (Wild Poetry Forum) I recall the spiral down the spit-fountain in my father’s dental chamber: I leaned too long over the sucking shiny throat, stalled, steeling against my return to his adept hands wielding instruments that would drill precisely into my fault. I lay back dry mouthed on that baroque black barbershop chair, as if for a trim, scissors on the sides; resigned to the rest, longing for a sip of water, some respite. He turned secretively as he would in the kitchen to decant a tumbler of scotch. The pestle riffed a hard hissing mantra: he urged it against the mortar, mixing the mystic silver-mercury amalgam; then into me flooded the moment of bonding more intimate than thirst: his soft warm fingers in my mouth. Judge Patricia Smith’s comments: “I’m the dictionary definition of a daddy’s girl, and this gentle poem—so full of specific detail, yet at its center a tender and intense moment between father and child—hit me right in the heart.”


MARIGOLDS *Sally Arango Renata* (South Carolina Writer’s Workshop) Rust scallops the red wheelbarrow, left too long in mud by the shed. Still, it carries the white rocks that have to be cleared from the garden—in time they’ll be spread as a path. The handle on the short shovel is broken, but held right, it cuts sharp through stones and carries them to the mound of clippings, weeds, the alien balls of bound roots. The rose can use morning sun and composted dung. I trim dried buds and yellow leaves, more than one thorn penetrates my thin gloves. I take them off to mound the soil around the crown of root, leaving them off to stick my finger in sandy soil planting seeds. Peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, collards, I’ll can what I can’t eat— or trade with the neighbor for pears when their tree is weighed, breaking, abundant. It was called a Victory Garden during the Big War when sugar and meat were rationed, but the garden for this war will be called Forgiveness, and I’ll surround it with marigolds, so the souls can find their way home. Judge Patricia Smith’s comments: “I love the simple instructive tone of this piece, its solidness and warmth. I couldn’t decide if the last line was touching or trite, so—maybe because I’m a child of concrete and brick, pitifully inept in matters of the soil—I chose to be touched.”


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