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First Place Winner: Daniela Elza
an ivy for Remembrance
day in another year of War
they are calling out
the names
at the cenotaph.
white walls
echo
expected
silences.
ambivalence
is the ivy sprung
in my neat garden of beliefs.
can human life
buy justice liberty
peace?
the equation
is not mathematical.
it is creeping.
you cannot see where it begins
where it
ends:
a formula for growing
old in a day.
I grab my garden shears.
head for the intruding ivy.
so I can mourn the
dead properly
today. I
do not know how
I am going to
break the
news
that they
keep dying
for a cause not
always just
that they take part
in
a ritual sacrifice.
that we have
more than enough
dead
to strike
a bargain.
I am up against a wall
that used to be white
among the skeletons
of winter ivies.
I stare down the
muzzle of history.
my ankles
shackled with suspicions.
my mind twisting away
from the temptation
to forget.
I climb.
my hands
turned feelers
disappear into
the persistence
of photosynthesis
embracing the
wall against which
for the first time
I began
to
doubt.
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October/06 Winners
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