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Tennessee
Book Award - Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel
| 1st
Prize Rachel Ryan
2nd Prize John Paul Hampstead 3rd Prize Rebecca Rathjen |
1st
Prize
Autumn:
A Sestina
Rachel
Ryan
The leaves had been falling
since October, the crisp
taste
of autumn and the black
and indigo
of the night on my skin,
the feel of clothes from
the wash,
hanging and dancing in the
smooth
air. We take them down and
smooth
the creases out, children
falling
into the laundry pile to
wash
away their worries with
the taste
of pumpkin's stickiness
on their skin
and their clothes, plaid
and indigo.
Our love gone from scarlet
to indigo,
through the whole spectrum
of smooth
light separated in prisms
as skin
touches and each says-I
am falling
in love with you-our kisses
taste
like spices of autumn and
we wash
the dishes in the sink together,
wash
away the crumbs from indigo
china, wash away the taste
of pumpkin pie from the
smooth
dishes, and then see one
dish falling;
the shards of glass cut
his skin.
I sweep the floor, clean
his skin
and we let the memory wash
away in the crunch of falling
leaves and shades of indigo
at dusk. Sunsets like smooth
sorbet, with the same sweet
taste.
I am afraid that my last
taste
of love ended with our skin
soft and warm, when I smoothed
his hair and felt the wash
of cricket's song in the
indigo
of my heart, with the leaves
falling.
2nd
Prize
Moving Water
John Paul Hampstead
I heard you before
I saw you, though
I knew what you were.
The rushing of movement
against
the silence of heavy woods
yielded
finally to an old bridge
of stone
over black moving water,
deep
and pouring over rocks thinly.
Leaves swept along the length
of your
extended arm stopped and
started
in eddies and gentle falls,
hesitantly groping toward
a new place.
I do remember the rasp of
moccasin leather
against the smooth causeway,
a rhythmic
scrape scrape scrape mixing
with your trickle, always
murmuring
even when I'm not here to
listen.
Soon I was leaving you again;
a transient encounter with
an old love
that I felt coming and departed
from reluctantly, like a
leaf in
moving water that pauses
briefly,
then slides past.
Tennessee
Book Award - Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel