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Honorable Mention – “Inside Out”

Shake winter if you can —
like an old rug in a mudroom
flecked with birdseed waste
once cased in ice that your
boots tracked into the house.

Shake it over snow, so any
tiny, unused seeds can grow —
only to be weeded out by you
in spring when mud’s the
clutter that you bring inside.

Boots, snow, birdseed, hungry
doves, grubby mats, sprouting
plants, mud-caked clogs —
you go from season to season
acquainting and reacquainting

the outside with the inside,
the inside with the out. Do you
doubt the value of this exchange?
No, you don’t — not while
you’re able to heft a rug and

stomp a shoe, listen to birds
chirp, whistle, coo, trill. This
is your part in life: track mud
and waste into the house, shake
the mat, put fresh seed out.

Georgia Ressmeyer, an east coast native, has resided happily in Wisconsin since 1974. Twice a winner of grants from the Wisconsin Arts Board, she has published fiction, numerous poems, and a poetry chapbook, Today I Threw My Watch Away (Finishing Line Press, 2010). She lives in Sheboygan, near Lake Michigan.