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THE IBPC BOARDS
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Winning Poems for January 2003
Judges: The editors of River Styx
Missing the Cut
on Noah's Ark
by William Neumire
Bristled knees sloughing
Through three-foot waves, broken
liquor flasks, bronze coins, bone
Dice, keepsakes of a papery world
Move on the brine surface.
What can you lie
About with the water already
Breeching your waist?
But there are these moments- before
The wrath is full, while the boat
Is still swelling in the distance:
To watch the species budge
Their way to the hull and squeeze
Themselves between the bowed boards-
Knowing that you are at least
Better than this desperation.
To be proud of your godlessness
And gather the entire scarred earth
In one more good breath.
There are the small
Decisions: to move through the downward
Current or stand a while as the only
Motionless thing.
To find a woman, already praying,
And remember what passion you can.
Or to pray yourself, legs akimbo
In the ocean mood, salty tides
Lapping in the throat, muffling tardy words.
To recall the last few sins
And if not to repent then to take
A new pride in their purchased
Taste.
To open your eyes
To the water, or to close them.
Visiting his Aunt,
Christmas 2002
(Green Holly Man)
by Laurie Byro
The rivers have frozen, yet beneath the ice,
turtles and fish swim in slow motionσ
a silent ballet, undistracted by the jubilant world.
At night, we skate beneath stars
that pirouette closer. The motion above
and below suspends us as if we were fish,
struggling to breathe, struggling
to keep from becoming stones.
Last year, trying to escape the coldσ
we snuck off to the barn,
to hear the lowing of the animals.
But the dark with its mossy warmth
greeted us with another legend, and the
green holly man startled us
from his perch up in the rafters.
This night, we are cagey, fearless.
A flask of whiskey has made us bold.
You tie up my laces, wrap a long red scarf
round and round.
You kiss my forehead, warm my neck
with wool muffled breath.
We skate through a skeleton of trees,
sentinels to a deeper forest. We stop
at a boulder we know by its graffiti,
pause to take a swig, your eyes merry
as you tell me to look up at the cobwebbed sky.
Weνve dared each other before. I suck
your bottom lip, taste the smoky malt.
Birds mate in the trees, branches fill with eyes.
Your arms are thorned as you pass
the flask. Your eyes glow red.
The trees rustle, your face scratches
as you kiss me, whispering "Happy Christmas."
I remember the bitter taste of you.
You crush one berry in my mouth.
The Eighth Day
by Ken Ashworth
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 , it 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.
Annie's Hair
by Andrea Defoe
My sister's hair,
white-blonde milkweed silk,
glides between plastic teeth.
I promise her I'll get it right.
I set curls to frame her face,
like the ones I gave her on prom night.
When she was sixteen and I was fourteen,
I was weedy, awkward, and invisible.
She made the boys stupid.
Daddy used to watch her
while she washed the dishes,
blonde ringlets damp with sweat.
He'd spit his chew in the sink,
wipe the brown dribble on his sleeve
and clasp her from behind.
She'd wash herself
until her skin looked sunburnt.
I'd fix her hair.
When she married Charlie
I gave her an elegant updo.
When he left her I polished her up
so she could find a new man.
She vowed years ago
that I'd have to outlive her,
because I was the only one who
could get it right.
She is tied into this chair,
so she wont flop over,
wearing a mask of foundation
on her face,
and on her wrists
to conceal the slits -
as if anyone could forget.
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