Earlier this fall, City Pulse and East Lansing’s (SCENE) Metrospace teamed up to sponsor a poetry contest. It was open to the public, and the poems were allowed to reflect any theme.
The winner, Carrie Preston of Brookline, Mass., was announced at a reading on Nov. 28 at (SCENE). Preston, a former MSU student who grew up in Okemos, is plugged into the local poetry scene.
Having given you so little (draft #12)
tonight I want to give youall the birches of my childhood,
their sadness.
Take them
as a half moon droops low
like an eyelid
brushed with silver shadow.
Take them
as an apology
for my sharpness.
You cannot see your gifts:
the shavings of time
you carve for me,
as easily as you draw curls
with scissors along a ribbon
to decorate a present
so I can finish one more thing
before we go;
the way your wood-rough hands
capable of carrying anything, softened, gathered up my wisps of hair
with a crescent shaped barrette;
the slivers of me you’ve always known,
never demanding I be full.
Having given you so little
I want to hold you
the way the birch bark holds its branch
coiling a little at the edges.
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