Honors in Creative Writing
Helen G. Scott Prize for Creative Writing in Poetry
Mary Kinzie Prize for Fiction
Things under the water
1.
as if you could give me
something the rest of the world cannot
(can you?)
2.
dead lizards floating in chlorine, slick, hot tails of rot
their scales peeling off, listing to the bottom.
how I swim and think of you, babe.
3.
once in your bed, covers pulled too high and toes
exposed to cool air, you were laughing
and holding me and I felt like maybe one day I could feel safe
again. except for how you kept laughing.
4.
nonetheless, I think of you as I swim my laps.
nonetheless, as I do the dishes, take a nap, drive a car, watch
an obscure German film that you mentioned once, where a nurse
loves a communist and we witness only the aftermath.
5.
deadliest of daydreams.
I want to feel safe more than anything, more than I want you here
so I get it—we all have a string marionetting us to tangles,
I get it more than most (I hope) my hands slipping
beneath the cool water, a bee buzzing on the surface, slipping
into an absence of baptism. I would like God to speak
and tell me I’m a fool for this melodrama—
6.
to think of you and God in the same cloud,
as if either of you could give me anything—
that I under the warm sun skin burnt and stretched—