SUMMER

2013

“BEST OF ISSUE” WINNER

AS SELECTED BY OUR READERS

$500 scholarship award

My Bullets

It has eyes in its mouth.

Lots of them; little golden eyes which wink

but never close. I like to watch them

peel off of the roof and tear toward us

like tiny tongues of fire. I try to catch them,

to ignite, to be an envelope of light.

There is no sky.

But I wait for it to rain to wash my hair,

so I can clean my face with someone else’s tears.

Like this, I can pretend the sky

is there.

I swallow bullets.

They are cold and leaden,

and roll smoothly down my tongue.

I hide them inside me

and turn them into diamonds.

Alexandra Mendelsohn, NJ, Bergen County Academies

EDITOR'S CHOICE AWARD WINNER

Post, haste

Two in the afternoon and

overcast plate glass glows translucent

beyond my silhouetted form

at the back corner table.

Someone takes the other chair.

The sandy scrape of time-stained wood

washes up with waves of idle chatter and china

clattering on the current certainty that

I will sit in silence.

Shades of self-absorbed other pass

shop and street alike, distance distorted

through sleet on the window --

but never mind.

The constant heat in my hands is enough.

A foreshadow of the moment left

a crack in this sepia mug that is not mine

yet nests in my palms

and sends spirals up to steep the air

with some stranger drift of

home.

Rachel Xu, PA, The Lawrenceville School

"BEST OF ISSUE" NOMINEES

chinese cemetery - Hannah Broderick, HI, Punahou School

Tectonic - Briana Marie Fonte, FL, Mater Academy Charter

Sans âme. - Kelsey Davis, NC, North Henderson High School 

ALL OTHER CERTIFIED NATIONAL WINNERS

Bandage - Maryssa Dennis, TX, Hendrickson High School

Fragile Hourglass - Taylor Volk, IL Dekalb High School

Truth is the Dream - Madeline Rita, CO, Denver School of the Arts

Libertine - Regina Xu, CA, Evergreen Valley High School

Jet Black Serenade - Quang Vo, TX, Alief Early College High School

UnSpace - Decia Forrester, WI, Middleton High School

Ghost Trains - Emily Joe Watterson, IL, Jacobs High School

hospitalsong - Katherine Mottissey, MA, Norwood High School

And It Is How Much We Forget That We Cannot Remember - Qianqian Zhao, MA Boston Latin School

Answered - Lisa M. Mueller, CT, Rockville High School

Birdfall - Isabella Grabski, NJ, Bergen County Academies

Quiver, Gently Quiver - Quang Tran, GA, Berkmar High School

for Christina - Chloe Rybicki-Kler, MI, The Roeper School

The Sonnet of the wanderer - Leah Jones, ME, Bangor High School

The Burning - Jessie Weber, PA, Hershey High School

Joys of the Mind - Ruhy Patel, PA, Central Bucks High School West

Sonnet 134 - Aaron Broache, MD, Mount Saint Joseph HS

Bait - Michelle Shen , CA, Saratoga High School