Winner

Margaret Gray

What I should have said

Water should not be a barrier that

Separates us. I keep imagining my

self as a small child and you as this 

fairytale figure, with his pale blue horse 

 

Familiar cliches that expand with 

each passing calendar day. I reach you, 

grasp you, I should have said: I keep trying

to imagine you as a little girl

in a red jacket and shoes and me 

 

this massive tawny beast that covets her. 

(We covet what we love.) I keep seeing

An alleyway where I fall asleep in

a bulk of fur and warm breath. I wake up

 

with tentative dawn and find you cradled

in the natural contour of my body. 

I am animalistically un-

thinking and the urge is towards consumption.

 

I cannot bring myself to bite down. I

take you home across invisible lakes

and frozen-solid ponds. I leave you cold

and don’t say anything. I should have said

 

I’m sorry I mythologized my self

and my body- I’m sorry for making 

 

space where it shouldn’t have been- Water should

not be a great barrier between us

Thru the Window

while I slept,

I was somewhere inland,

somehow miles and miles from the white sand

and black water.

the plants grew sideways,

thick and strong,

ate away at the wooden structures where people lived. 

 

I was alone most of the time,

and alone I folded a twin mattress and blankets into the trunk bed

drove down a set of tire grooves cut starkly into the blue dirt

the dream went faster and faster,

my hands were heavy and loose on the wheel,

the sun set too quickly.

I was no good,

too far away from where I was going,

unmoored, and knew it unforgettably.

 

this was not my first life; faintly I remembered the waking world

the body I inhabited was a borrowed one

lucidity made the periphery of my vision wiggle

and my attention drift from the road.

 

later, awake, close to the water,

where I can still be held tightly by the kelp and the tide,

I asked for companionship.

I was sent a few pieces of my hair,

with a dotted ribbon wrapped ‘round. 

 

though I knew the locks had been conceived immaculately

I imagined some faceless, nameless warmth 

pressed to the back of my body

silver scissors against the nape of my neck;

somehow, at the time, it escaped my notice

 

in my imaginings 

this anonymous heat signature 

picked me out on purpose

and liked the way that I was oblivious to him

 

later in my inland dream, 

I reached a deserted building,

white floors and walls, 

where I unfolded my bedthings 

and watched pensive out the window as the night blackened.

I heard another truck pull into the dilapidated driveway

heard the creak of the door and did not turn around

until the man stood right behind me.

 

This was his place, but he did not ask me to leave.
Instead, with wide hands,

He took my head in his hands 

And grasped it

a smoking gun/ god mother

 

the sun was hot on creation day

we were outside the log building 

off the highway,

where the aloe vera grows squat and brown

 

it was flat for miles-

and you were standing there with your hair pulled up,

wearing those dark wash jeans

that ride so low, your hip bones look like twin javelins

or tree branches, the same curve, hook

(would you believe me if i told you i knew this feeling before i was born-

that i found it in some quicksilver pool

the same place i fermented before i had a body)

 

you gathered gravel from the driveway

brought it to your face, and breathed it in

i gained consciousness inside the pink hollow of your lung

 

it could have been years i spent in there

pushing up against your ribcage,

trying to get a hold on it

 

you exhaled me out your nostrils

i was human for the first time,

sculpted in your image

 

and sitting there at your feet,

amniotic fluid running rivers down my forehead

i was scraped raw, skin bubbling under that sharp sun

 

lucky for me you were no cruel god mother

you grabbed me by the nape of the neck

licked me clean with a scratchy feline tongue

 

the desert is not so kind as you

not so forgiving for the space i have taken up within it

i stick to the petrol-perfumed highway

and hope that you are following me

Dead Body Encounter

i dreamt i saw you after you drowned

your skin was blue and you had a little indent on your temple

otherwise,

you looked as you did alive:

 

i was at the bottom of the creek

with this mirage

how is it underwater,

you said.

i told you it was like nothing-

like being above the surface,

but more 

and the information glanced off you like a wayward spear

your neck was bloated with dead-water

the mixture of your throat humors and chlorine

this grayed composition came creeping from your mouth

and threatened me

 

my lungs burnt a bit

i thought about breaking through the surface,

away from the imprint you left down there

but i was somehow immobilized

 

how is it underwater,

you said. 

i don’t know,

it feels like breathing air