An Angel Gets Her Wings
O, Kindergarten
On the Numbness That Will Be Our Future
On the Numbness That Will Be Our Future - 1st Place
Brett Foster
And then the weather turned cold and never got better,and we were forced to wear our sweaters later and later,
at high-school graduations, mid-June in Key West, these bright
commencements of the brightest, where shivering we sat,
surveyors of risers in our puffy vests. We would have cheered
had we not been holding our mittens, or holding the white
elastic that held them, tenderly permanent equipoise of decay
and perseverance. On most days we were wind-bitten, chapped.
Soon we sought maps to release us from unseasonal fronts,
which became constant, sans season. We took our winnings and spanned
the round world’s four corners for white sands and comfort, but no
matter: to no avail. Even the grand beaches failed to please us
then, in those final days, even the blazing views of Australia’s
Great Ocean Road were rendered with wind-chilled sameness,
Apollo Bay and Cape Otway just another Siberia more or less,
and we visitors who had so hoped for improvement, increased
vision and lifting temperatures, or at least inhabitable encampments
displaying vistas more welcoming, we too were… Read more »