Poetry 99: adult winners

First place

The Art of Diebenkorn

For ages

of rolling dust

around my mouth,

I saw the coast pull away

in a charcoal smudge,

a purple horizon

that didn’t belong to us.

I found a place

in the cityscapes,

every woman a lounger

in an empty room.

I know her

and I can understand why

she had to leave her sons

in the hands

of a hundred dollar bill.

She just couldn’t see

how her shoulders blended

with the yellow of the walls,

how the edges of her skin formed

to the fields beyond her,

how every space depended

on the shape of her body.

-Natisha Williams, Chico

Not only is Natisha new to Poetry 99, she’s also new to town. She’s been in Chico for only a few months since moving up from San Diego, but she’s wasted no time in making herself known, taking the top two spots in this year’s contest. She’s a land planner by trade and in her spare time enjoys writing poetry—which she got interested in via writing classes and the spoken-word club in college.

Second place

While I Was Waiting for You

While I was waiting for you

On the steps we never agreed to

The movement of the birds

Told me you were coming for me

And when the wind blew leaves in front of me

I thought in that direction I would find you

And you would tell stories

how you found my name on keychains

Hanging in gift shops, from places

like Tucson or Wyoming,

Of endless stretches of land

Sewn within a car window,

How the tires moved like rubber toes

Inching across a paved highway

That ran from you for miles

And into everyone you knew.

-Natisha Williams

Third place

Boots

My father loved

The feel

Of flannel

Across his broad shoulders

Loved to crush

The bones of chicken

Thighs between

His weathered fingers

Dark, hard-labor

Dirt beneath their unscrubbed nails

On Saturday nights

He’d sing “Where could I go

But to the Lord?”

On the front-porch swing, his boots

Unlaced, and watch

My mother

In gingham

Gather things

To bring him

-Steve Metzger, Chico

As a writer, musician, songwriter and longtime English instructor—formerly at Chico State, now at Butte College—Steve fits the bill for someone who would do well in a poetry contest. However, he insists that he’s written only “maybe three poems” in his life, including this one, which just came to him all at once.

Honorable mentions

Coriander

Diana’s skin tone

is sometimes the speckled

red-brown of raw pinto beans,

or

like tonight,

beneath yellow street light,

the pale golden-brown of potato skins.

Rock in hand

she crushes stink bugs

into cement lamp posts.

I notice her bicep

choked in fresh bruise.

In her driveway, her mother’s

boyfriend’s truck.

I think of a time

Diana mouthed off.

Boyfriend threw her phone

in garbage, poured milk over it

and yelled,

Talk now, Girl!

Let’s key it, I say,

thumbing towards her driveway.

Eyes laden,

she smiles vacantly,

her ocher glow clenched

by coriander’s scent.

-Kevin Svahn, Chico

My Joy

The way papaya seeds spill from the slice,

I taste the sweet of the

deep drum’s boom

Boom

watching the hen’s feathered waddle

from behind

Brilliant white fluff,

My own reflection is a shock

when taking time to notice

an entire world in the crack of a sidewalk

But my sink is spotless.

Nothing to see.

Ant seems big as he strokes his own antennae

in the light of the candle that flickers in Buddha’s palm.

Hands hug the soles of my bare feet,

My mind is empty

when my daughter says “I wish I could fly.”

-Emily Salmon, Paradise

A Woman Preparing a Pie

The blade flicks

and dances

under a practiced and expert hand.

I am cutting you

out of my heart

with the sharpest knife

I could find,

pretending I’m only dealing

with apples

and rotten spots.

-Andrea Marchand, Chico

Motorhome Cruisin’—Mom’s 83 Ford Jamboree

Mother drove on, with the flat tire

Flapping rubber,

slapping those around us with an odd desire to stare

We drove anyway

With sunset watching calm,

she steered us into a new life

Three miles till the slapping stopped and metal touched cement

We pulled into the Safeway parking lot

like pirates reaching land after months at sea

Taking two spaces,

we followed mom into the store

Each of us picked out a piece of fruit

and she got us a scratcher …

I still think we won

-Scott Bailey, Chico

Yellow

The world is yellow

I am beautifully radiant

The sky is exploding

The air is golden

-Ashley Phipps, Chico

Bobbie Pins

In every house I clean, bobbie pins

clank around my vacuum agitator like sabots

in the machines, protesting for justice.

Clients’ summer haircuts grown into awkward

phases, needing taming. Fastened

Halloween hats and glitter that won’t suck

out from the floorboards. Bobbie pins to match

every color of hair and fake wood laminate.

Pins with glued rhinestones or plastic

teddy bears get picked up when they fall.

But the bulk pack, working class

bobbies, like pennies, aren’t worth

a client’s bend. So into my machine with them

until I can afford better glasses.

-Wren Tuatha, Magalia

Diner love

A couple eats,

bodies tilted toward one another,

resentment of the table revealed

in hands, fingers touching,

in eyes, interlocked.

One of them lifts a glass, then

eyebrows at the other.

Habits pared from speech,

emotion embodied over time

permeates muscle and bone,

sinew and nerve.

A couple eats

focused on food in front of them,

the gentle click of fork on plate,

bodies quiet.

One of them, unasked,

hands the other the bread basket,

passes the butter.

-Barbara Alderson, Chico

The Sound of Love leaving

So this is the sound of love leaving.

A sound that spins and catches at the back of the throat.

A sound of letters, syllables and words;

Words that are soft in their solemnity

Words that are tough in their temerity

Words of angles, borders and edges.

Words squeezed in a vice until letters and syllables pop out

And hang in limbo between brain and voice box;

Syllables disconnected

Letters alone

Words lost.

-Leroy Emry, Chico

Easter

Fir, pine, cedar

protected us

as we hiked, like pilgrims

to Mecca, to the four

waterfalls,

each a wonder of mist and light

more hallowed

than the last.

This was our Hajj—

on Easter, no less,

but there was no

bowing

five times a day

once we’d arrived.

There was the earthy smell

of forest,

the cathedral of trees.

When you’re in Mecca, you do as Meccans do—Inshallah (as god

wills it).

You drink the blood of river

and eat the bread of sky,

while celebrating

white sun

filtering through branches

of fir, pine, cedar.

-Shannon Rooney, Chico

Saturday Afternoon

Intertwined arms, legs

Tumbling together they cling

Laundry Fantasy.

-Rose Vanneman, Chico

Dementia

I brave

the pungent hallways

lined with afghan-covered forms.

They shuffle their feet

as they sit in wheelchairs

for another day

of body

disconnecting

from mind.

Several talk

as I pass them,

uttering a secret code

I cannot understand.

I’m on my way

to the room

of she who brought me

into this world where

brains betray.

She’s happy, at first,

to see me,

and then—

she’s mad, insisting the

leopard fake fur

slippers I’ve brought

are dangerous.

I half expect them to

leap out of the box,

snarling.

-Shannon Rooney