Janet Buck - Honorable Mention


Avocado Issue Pie


Bruisable.  Bright green.  Lush.
This opening night
of brand new love.  
Lights lit.  Sweet sweat.
A spring in our hearts. 
Cherry Jello on marshmallow nipples.
Then comes life.  The knives.
Her stomach, once a cutting board,
fitness spreading the fragrance of envy,
warped by time and burning
in the acid of unpaid bills.
Faith browned too long
by the broiler of will:
a sunflower split, descending
in the dry crevasse.

Ribboned leaves of promises
that earthquakes of another slap, 
another love (perhaps) assaults.  
Curtains fall like finches 
dropping from a telephone wire. 
Cheesecake once,
our dreams were smooth.
Turn to avocado issue pie.
Badly blackened in the air
regardless of romancing seeds.
Slippery as otters on algae and moss
above a beating tide of flesh.
We stay to meet the suffer fork.
Swallow our choice to wafer ourselves--
as corks that never return 
to the bottle the way they came.

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