Winner, adult poetry.
by Brandy Lynn Maslowski
Somewhere along the river
the fish eyes filter
through the darkness.
By now, this day and age,
their generation sees
no rainbow.
A passer-by comments
on the empty cups, the straws,
the mustard foiled burger paper,
the brown murky water,
her child tightly seat-belted,
with a sliding lid cup of cheerios,
sings red-orange-yellow-green-
blue-indigo-violet
A lone elderly woman cries
tears and tears
with the news of 5 Canadians
dead in Mexico,
especially the father and son
who left a wife and daughter.
She drops her knitting and wavers
over to the white castled window
her children invested in
for a view of the river.
A firefighter gets a tetanus shot
for nicking her arm with a knife
trying to cut free
a drowning jumper tangled
as they save him
as he tried to die.
The heart beat of the dragon boat
begins his solid rhythmic chant
increasing the speed and intensity
of his fairly fit team
as the elites slide by
hardly trying.
The baggers in the lilac bush green
coloured tent by the shore lie still
at dusk as if never there
while footsteps of possible police
walk by and away.
The fish won’t breathe a word.
Together they can sleep another night.
Somewhere along the river.