2016
POETRY OPEN
Honorable Mention
$25 Award
WAITING
by Beth Mills
The three of us, waiting,
A thin wall against the wind.
Dad, listing a little,
His hair slicked back,
His goofy smile.
Mom, with her sharp eyes,
The deep cave under her shoulder blades,
So fierce and afraid.
I’m standing between,
An old little girl,
With arms around them,
Trying to hold on.
Soon these two will be taken—
Wind, voices, shadow, rain—
And I’ll be drifting,
Circling back,
To this small place in the mind.
A thin wall against the wind.
Dad, listing a little,
His hair slicked back,
His goofy smile.
Mom, with her sharp eyes,
The deep cave under her shoulder blades,
So fierce and afraid.
I’m standing between,
An old little girl,
With arms around them,
Trying to hold on.
Soon these two will be taken—
Wind, voices, shadow, rain—
And I’ll be drifting,
Circling back,
To this small place in the mind.
______________________________
Beth Mills has been a poet all her life. Her grandmother wrote poetry in Yiddish and published many poems in the Yiddish Daily Forward. Her father read poetry to her from the time she could listen, and she carried her love for words into her elementary school classroom, helping children discover the poems inside them. She has had essays published in Educational Leadership and Orbit 60, and recently, poems in Mothers Always Write and Keeping Chickens Magazine. Chickens make excellent fodder for poetry!