Poem of the Week: Larry Duncan – ‘Positioning the Body’

3rd Place
Trina Askin – ‘Parted’

There’s a story so quiet it would break your heart
and you think it’s like the dimming of the night lantern’s
yellow in a red field. Or how about this one:
the lady on the train, who told you of her forbidden lover
the day of his vow to leave the mob, sending her a taxi
in the street markets of Bangkok. And how she found him
dead and wrist bruised in the back seat. But no,
it’s not that kind of story. Instead, find a salmon shaded shed
in a dying neighborhood just outside a lovely city— open it.
Smell apple blossom tree and rain mix with musty mildew,
and remember what you thought you forgot.
Then cry; realize you’re sobbing alone,
and that this isn’t out of the ordinary at all really.
That it should be sad, but it’s not anymore.
It’s just you and how the day goes these years—
sweetly somber and unending, surrounded by birch wood
for another’s snowy lake bonfire, the last migrations late for South.