First Place Winner, May 2009 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

First Place Winner, May 2009

MARIPOSA *Tim Blighton* (Desert Moon Review) for Karen 1. What can I do? My fingertips have rope burns, but the sky has been quiet for days. Nightly, I roam a sea of barstools with nothing more than shot glasses for ballast, while all doors exit into a spinning compass of neon stars and vomit. Sometimes, the difference between coursing the tradewinds or drifting alone is an unspoken lie between strangers. 2. The eye accepts all it can: the glare of snow, the black of velvet in a ring case, or the old note on a steamy mirror. Without light we would have less to presume. We might accept our accidents and causality as reminders that we can’t always see where we’re going. 3. The moon is a busker, borrowing as it travels. I contemplate light refracting in the empty glass in front of me. The bartender leaves the bottle; from the counter, it is fluorescent. 4. You find me in a mouth of sediment, worn by the sun’s returning tides. Your hair is hemp woven with lilacs and anchored to your prayer beads, dangling between us. I sink, unable to decide. Your hands open into a butterfly (mariposa you say). The narrow alleys flood with snow-melt. Your smile, angular and nomadic, is cast into the busy streets as you turn. Let me release your hair and draw it close; let me set sail. Comments by judge Duncan Mercredi: “‘I roam a sea of barstools with nothing more than shot glasses for ballast, while all doors exit into a compass of neon stars and vomit.’ The above line by itself says it all. I have been there, I have sat next to this writer in every seedy bar, in every dive and have met all those night time companions that he hints have accompanied him on that great journey into the darkest recesses of humanity. Yet somehow he finds a beauty in this place and I too have found that same peace with these strangers. He just says it better than I could though I have tried.”