First Place:

You Shouldn’t Have

By Lydia Morsman

Potpourri. On our twentieth anniversary, Barry gets me lavender, pinecones, and bark.
His excuse? Head’s not in the game—Mum passed away.

Yeah, yeah. Hardly unexpected—old Nicotine Fingers ran out of puff, barked and spluttered her way to Heaven. ‘Jesus, darlin’, got a light?’

Potpourri. A wicker casket of dust and funeral flowers. Cheap crap. What I gave her for Christmas. She deserved it—squandered our inheritance on Superkings and scratch cards.

Wait…

Potpourri. The very same I gave her. Different giftbox. Same lavender, pinecones, and bark… same oleander. Different gift tag—yours forever, Barry x

My throat itches.

Second Place:

Second Born

By Verity Dunbar

You howl at skinned knee,

Badly bumped head,

Cry – high and long -

From cold, lonely bed.

You bark at your brother

Who barks back in your face.

Spittle and teeth; back in your place.

You whine over dinner

Then chirp at dessert.

Whimper and wail

Into folds of my skirt.

You bleat tidying up,

Protests bellow through the house,

Then snort great sobs on the sleeve of my blouse.

You whinny, whicker,

Hee-haw and hoot

Hide-and-seeking in the garden;

No tears, no dispute.

In time, you’ll growl, grunt -

No longer a child. 

Formidable. Second born. Second son. Wild. 

Third Place:

Patterns

By Sean Thomas McDonnell

Danny walked up to the tree and placed his hand on the burl. “Looks like a mouth, don’t it?”

Peter shrugged. “Not really.”

“Sure it does—and look, up above it. Those two bumps in the bark look like closed eyes. Like any second they could open.”

Peter walked over and poked one of the knots with his finger; the husk parted, a glassy eye shot a glance.

Danny threw a coin at its convex iris.

Peter hacked at its roots with his brother’s pocket knife.

The neighbors came barking and fed the tree rocks until its eyes closed forever.

Fourth Place:

BlackBox

By Jay McKenzie

Grandpa is my co-pilot. 

We fly cardboard planes across lazy summers where bees kiss ice lollies and the sky barks hot-belched summer storms overhead. Aim high, he says while we make continents out of flowerbeds, oceans out of puddles. 

Today, we’re flying to where Grandpa taught Dad how to fly. Tomorrow, we’ll scratch our shins on the bark of the red cedar that was the control tower and see Grandpa fly solo. On my lap, the black box, stuffed with fragments of us dipping between cracks in the clouds and the stars, and Grandpa’s last flight as my co-pilot.