First Place Winner, June 2005 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

First Place Winner, June 2005

T.J.
Yolanda Calderon Horn
(Writer’s Block)

He gave me to drink from his dented tin can.
It was surprisingly cool: not bad for tap water.
The living/kitchen area was vastly infertile--
with two lawn chairs posing as rainy-day furniture
and a gooseneck sink next to a circa 50’s icebox.
The place was clean.

One ill fitted window on a wall
faced a faded-yellow sheet that dangled
in place of a bedroom door.
He grabbed a towel, rinsed it;
with his hand quietly on my elbow,
he led me through the managing curtain.
My trembling stopped.

A twin bed, stack of law books and
nightstand huddled in the center of the room.
There was lunch neatly tucked in a napkin on the table
along with the leather box monogrammed T.J.
That’s where he kept the old letters.
I dared to ask how he came to save them
when everything else was lost.

I must have appeared as an apparition
that traveled from the past and arrived
in pulled smoke--whose accident outside
the front yard disturbed a valley silence.
He wiped drying blood from my forehead,
asked if I was hungry. Before I answered,
he tore the cheese sandwich in half.

Judge Aaron Welborn’s comments: “Coincidence is a vital force. It can’t be stopped--only marveled at. The marvel of this poem is its willingness to let us inhabit the moment of a coincidence coming together, with all the disorientation, alertness, and wonder of the speaker--and without explaining too much. The careful attention to detail allows actions and images to speak for themselves, and we’re left to luxuriate in the unanswered mysteries of the poem. Who is T.J.? What sort of letters are in that box? In the end, the answers are not important. The moment is.”