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Second Place Winner: Connie Post
Finding Bookstores
A woman goes into a used bookstore
filled with shelves of
unresolved manuscripts and half
written chapters
she does not know how she got there
she only knows of an empty book bag
she has carried for three decades
and the thick strap that makes
distinct imprints on her shoulder
she wanders the stacks
like a lost soldier in the woods
trees of bookcases casting unsafe
shadows from the dim light
Finally,
on the second shelf down, the third
row in
she finds a book she does not
remember writing.
discovers the pages dog-eared with
mourning and madness
as she had left them
the words fall off the page
like small scraps of paper from a
child’s art project
fall down, down, down
to her dark shoes
to the hardwood floor
one by one, she picks up her antique
words
off the unpolished floor
one by one
puts them back
onto the yellowing, cracked pages
the inner seam of the book is weak,
the preface faded
but the ending is the same
the familiar words gel into sentences
and memory
she sees the front porch again,
wearing her yellow second grade dress
where her mother first left her.
The dog barking. Her younger brother
crying.
the woman finally walks out of the
store
gives a quiet nod to the clerk who
asks for no money
she places the book into her weary
bag
knowing the ending is the same
It is the epilogue
she came to change
Back to Oct 2008
Winners
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