© by Kitty Hughes
Honorable Mention - Poetry
I am too young, my father, to have represented you, here in this waste,
where only the stubble catches the wind, and our tents leaning into it,
expanding and contracting. My eyes wander to the horizon, a thin grey
blankness separating me from all I remember -- my sister, the furrows
between her eyebrows when she pouts, my mother's small steps greeting
visitors, the carp mouthing secrets in the lower pool, my quilted silks, my
chrysanthemums. My lord raids villages in these outer provinces. I sit
alone, bartered for your peace to the south. I will not sit at table with him;
morsels of food hang in his pointed beard. I am writing to ask you is there
no return. You know I will not send this letter.