Poetry- 2nd Place

She is not burning, breaking
the little puffy cloud machine
over the water. She is not pouring out

to the priest, the rabbi, the wiccan
who are the real strangers to the story.
As we arrive barefoot

the fatherless girl we do not meet
emblazoned a heart of seashells round our initials
drawn stick-to-sand.

There’s something I want to ask. She walks
away from us now, away from the event
across the field of stones.

Judge’s Comments:

“The elegance and intensity of this brief poem allows the reader to simultaneously engage the notions of sorrow and celebration. An image, perhaps, of cremation – the smoke and the scattering of ashes – compared to a wedding gown and veil gives the reader a moment in which the beloved’s death transcends loss to become union. Graceful, deft, accomplished—a poem of release.”

Brandon Lewis has spent every summer of his life at the cabin his great-grandfather built in Door County. He received an MFA in poetry at George Mason University and his poems are published in The Missouri Review, Spork Press, apt, Salamander, Spinning Jenny, Poet Lore, NOÖ, and Fifth Wednesday. Brandon lives in NYC with his wife and baby girl.