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Contests : Margaret Reid Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2007 : Third Prize
UNCOVERED
I prayed for months to Anthony, the patron
saint of all things lost, to return the lace
mantilla—white-thread netting interwoven
with roses, pearl-like beads—that I'd worn to Mass
each Sunday. I prayed and waited, in a sort
of test. What sort of saint would deny the devout
request of a child? To look grown up, I'd worn
this pretty bit of veil. It wasn't about
vanity. I knew nothing of vanity
at twelve. A few months later, my prayer was answered.
The lost mantilla was sent back, but the rules
had changed by then. The church was letting girls
and women go to Mass with heads uncovered.
It came too late. I thanked St. Anthony.
In a hospital named for him, my mother died
the next year. They found the tumor, interwoven
threads in the grey matter of comprehension.
Too late. Through radiation treatments, I prayed,
through nausea, pleurisy, mother's head uncovered
twice, by surgery, by cell death. White
knit cap to try to hide the scars, scarlet
monk's hood to ward against the chill of winter.
They hid her naked pain from those who could not
bear it. My fingers interlaced the rosary—
beads, pearl-white knuckles. Holy Mary,
mother of God...she died by spring. By God,
I grew up then. And with my first black dress,
I wore the white mantilla to her last Mass.
This poem won third prize in the 2007 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. Author Cynthia Rausch Allar received a $200 award. Winning Writers assists this contest. Copyright is reserved to the author.
RISKING THE ROAD
a turtle's crossing
I should have trusted instinct, followed the impulse,
but there was no shoulder,
just two blades of lane, impenetrable
shield of tall grasses bounding sprouting fields
beyond, so I didn't stop. I wished her well,
she straddled the line. Hovering where she could
turn back, just as easy. Or as hard. Back
across the hard-won pavement, down to the thick
of things again. Back-down. Or ahead to a clear
spot barely visible on the horizon.
Exposed, but open. She'd made it this far
already, over the dark rock of a foreign
land, with its sudden wind, enveloping roar
that nearly lifted her off her feet. For sun,
perhaps, trusting instinct, she'd come this far.
I wished her speed, to cross the road unharmed.
Later, visit to father's stifling done,
I come back along the road, freedom beckoning
from my own far horizon. I almost believe
she's made it. Whole body the size of a human
head, hard and thick, but beneath bone bleeds
the softest tissue. Split it open
and she's dead. Halfway across
the other lane, within arm's reach
of her resting point, almost safe.
Shell cracked, tissue bright in the breach.
Wishing’s not enough.
Never was.
This poem won a High Distinction award in the 2007 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books. Author Cynthia Rausch Allar received a $100 award. Winning Writers assists this contest. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Cynthia Rausch Allar
Cynthia Rausch Allar received her MFA in Writing from Spalding University in 2004. She has had poems published in Paper Street, Bloom, The Underwood Review, New Millennium Writings, Aethlon, and The Mad Poets Review, among others. Her essay, "'A Snake Lies Hid:' Aphra Behn's Poetry and the War Between the Sexes", appears in Allegorica: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Literature. She runs a submission service for poets from her home in Pasadena, California, which she shares with her partner, her partner's teenaged daughter and an ancient cat. She has two grown children and one grandchild.
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