Contests

vincePoet’s Choice. Judge: Karen McPherson 1st Place: “The Good Nurse”  by Nancy Carol Moody, Eugene 2nd  Place: “Cryopediology” by Marian Shapiro, Lexington, Massachusetts 3rd Place: “the wonder and terrible” by Liz Robinson, Phoenix Honorable Mentions: “Among the Things You deserve” by Emily Ransdell “Live Music” by Dan Kaufman, Central Point “Central” by Marjorie Power, Denver, Colorado I

Fences were meant to climb over and woods dense with underbrush and muck our domain. We hacked through prickly bushes, trampled long grass, collected burrs on our clothes and in our hair, clear cut canopies to lay bare the soft earth, and sat for hours stripping bark to carve the skin that lay beneath. When

Snow on Western Hemlock Forest A corps de ballet, wearing Yesterday’s snowfall, branches Sway, curving down, Fingers dripping icy water Under bright mid-day sun, Heads tilted on drooping Necks; they dance more Slowly in dawn mist and With abandon in moonlight.   Penny Hetherington: One late April day driving past a Western Hemlock grove on

Out West   It was your silence that turned me Out and away from the hollowness Resounding through this empty place We sometimes felt was home. Along the beach road, walking away, I know one bird on the wire Is less alone than two Perched yards apart. A silent sea stack divides the Pacific On

Leaving Bones Upon the Sand   He could not stay away from the beacon house. The turret of light pulled him, flopping up the beach, gills drowning in the air. There was no desire but the primitive need to satisfy curiosity about the creature that looked out to sea, then back to land, with a

Codicil for Grief That he no longer sleeps past four in the morning. That she drank a six-pack of Miller’s before lying down with the handgun. That he found his brother in the backseat of a Ford. That his brother never woke up. That his brother’s notebooks were filled with tiny words. That his brother