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Atomic
Garden
by Nikko
1st Place
tiny ears and eyes open like
blossoms
bending to the tender voice of the guide
stones rattle in our hearts
among themselves brown sparrows
quarrel for scattered seeds a baby
rabbit trembles
as we tremble now for you laid
belly-down in a hollow under the bald
moon
face boiled empty and pocketed scars
Hiroshima
stopped like a watch
through ashes a grandmother
carried her burden
a furushuki of bones
she brought her daughter back
wrapped like a gift
some parents found only buttons
all night the children swim
searching for innocence
under the lid of a dreamless lake
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Streets of Tashken
by Joyce
Caines
Honorable Mention
Dry dust of chilla
doma walls pink in the late day sun.
A piece of corrugated sheet metal
lies crumpled on the street.
There is a man.
His undershirt is thirsty
for his bodywater and salt
He stoops over long handle hammer
levering nails.
One foot steadies the metal
the other is in the dust.
Infant son swaggers behind him
bent nails in the street
scattered under the shade of walnut
tree.
Barefoot he dances naked
near metal edge.
After
Vespers at the Monastery, Abiquiu, NM
by Anthony
Russell White
Honorable Mention
All is in shadow here, but light
still pours down Gallinas Cañon
from the West, firing
the yellow tips of cottonwood
and oak by the Chama River.
In moments they too are dark,
leaving only the East wall
of the towering mesa enflamed.
Silence tumbles from a fading sky.
In an hour the moon will rise
with its lesson in patience.
My narrow bed waits.
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