PRINCEMERE POETRY PRIZE

LEMONS – FIVE DRAFTS

For My Neighbor in Sun City

First Draft

In December I picked up
several large lemons from under your tree;
the sky of faded blue
and wind-swept white-grey clouds
was so high and so far away
from those dark birds gliding smoothly
through the dry air.

I wondered how life was going
for you now at the Parkview Nursing Home,
and not that it was any of my business, but also
I wondered why your only son
had not stopped by
to fix the broken branch weighted
down with lemons in the disfigured tree.

Second Draft

Last year I watched you shuffle
in your tatty pink bathrobe
out to the lemon tree to fill
a cotton bag with fruit.

This year I picked up several bright lemons
from under the crisp dark leaves
and decided to make a quart of limoncello,
just in case one day
I might want to sit
under the old stars
and drink to your health.

Third Draft

I picked up several sweet lemons
before pilfering the broken bar stool
which your son had abandoned,
along with the other garbage
haphazardly stacked beside the garage,
and I wondered if
he would mind that I kept his trash.

One lone dark bird
flitted through the faded blue sky.

Fourth Draft

I picked up several ripe lemons
from under your tree and reflected on
how quickly
birds can fly, trash can rot, life can pass.

Final Draft

The clouds today
look like a broken spinal chord,
like the sweepings
of a broom on a dusty old porch.
Dark birds abandon
the silent horizon
and fly to far, far away.

There were many lemons
under your tree.
For whatever good it did,
I picked them up.

Pam Vap has won this year's $300 Princemere Poetry Prize for "Lemons–Five Drafts."

Runner-up this year is Meghan Malachi’s poem "Proof." Meghan was awarded $100.

Finalists are Annie Christain’s "My Barn IRL," Shuri Geeslin’s "Autumn Midnight on Puget Sound," grace gilbert’s "Sometimes I put my legs up," and Kait Quinn’s "The Ovary is the Cathedral." Finalists are awarded $25.

Honorable Mentions this year are Brian Billings’s "Dreads Lost after a Cut-and-Run," Aloma Davis’s "Dark Murmuration," and Julie Sheridan’s "Agapornis."

We are grateful to everyone who submitted.

(Click the tabs above to see previous winners.)