2011 Second Prize in Poetry
Someday, in our
Rabbit-hole house, we’ll hang
Gatsby’s clocks, all set hours slow, because
We’ll be going nowhere fast, just
Eating Pilate Dead’s cherries, spitting their
Flesh-stained skulls into Styrofoam
Cups and washing our
Lady Macbeth hands in the same
Rust-ringed sink, humming
Mae Tuck’s lullaby while
The faucet hisses that our
Old messes will wash riverward
Through the drain like
Sophie Mol’s tiny, blonde body,
And if not, we’ll just run
From them like
Bukowski and Jane through
The roach-slum windows, and into
Taylor Greer’s Volkswagen Beetle, and
We’ll always land together, so I’ll
Change my name to yours, so long as
You’ll hold me Zeus-strong whenever I go
Ophelia-crazy, and stay with me until they
Send you northbound, and after that I’ll
Just lay like Miss Havisham in your
Moth-eaten T-shirts, praying on
Mary Magdalene’s dirt-caked knees.
