the story I’m telling myself is . . .

– after Brené Brown

no one intervenes.

call me a dead thing.
only then will you find
          no flaws.

steal my voice box. stuff it in
a letter like you’re spinning wildly
in a high slit. how dangerous.
send the lexicon spiraling
into satin luxury, won’t you
stalk me to silence

              until anthem turns dirge.
raise the statue of my mistakes
discarded pointe shoes and pink ribbons, then grab
a mirror, a hammer, and a dream with your teeth
it is you who refuse the dentist’s tricks.

     I’m sorry. I require more mistakes.

                             you’re too good
too good to dodge this dress rehearsal of tragedy
really how sad to squander even a second of joy

     I don’t deserve it.
     I denounce myself.

            you may have this dance.

poem by Bianca Amira Zanella

The Corinne Eastman Davis Award and the Arthur Wallace Peach Memorial Award are given for the best poem in the current issue of The Mountain Troubadour.

Fox

She sat calmly on the neighbors’ porch
after two feet of snow. That was enough
to bring the whole street outdoors.

We’d glimpse her in the secret
of her own pursuits—a smudge of rust
at the wood’s edge. Now she sat there,

so much more intimate than myth—
almost too small to be real.
No evidence of cunning, as though

she would gladly come inside
out of February’s storm. Stand back,
we said, don’t let the pets out.

Make sure the children stay away.
Police were summoned. Fish
and Wildlife was besieged with calls;

soft hairs bristled on our necks.
Before she left, she paused in front of me;
full coat soft russet, legs delicate,

black-stockinged. She stood inside a distance
my body had been taught to keep,
squinting at me, neither offering nor asking—

then trotting down the path a neighbor
had dug to come see for himself—disappeared
in the snow’s deep before officials came.

poem by Scudder Parker

The Corinne Eastman Davis Award and the Arthur Wallace Peach Memorial Award are given for the best poem in the current issue of The Mountain Troubadour.