Academy of American Poets Prize 2009
Winner:
48 Minutes
I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be 3 billion plus two on the other side of the moon, and one plus God only knows what on this
-Michael Collins, from Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journey
Imagine making it all the way to the moon
and not being able to step foot on it. To wait
in the never-ending everything, orbiting
while Armstrong and Aldrin dug oversized footprints
into the dusty surface for the first time. He goes
unremembered among the trio. The entire world
tuned in to live vicariously through Neil
as he delivered a solitary sentence, grammatically flawed,
that would be canonized as the first words of man
reaching outside himself, into the out there, the honest unknown.
A culminating moment for a generation
of kids who stayed up on weeknights, holding flashlights
under their covers, pretending to move in zero gravity
and catch condensed space food in their mouths
as it floated from their hands. They’d look back to earth
and see how even tension could appear peaceful.
In Apollo, he drifts away from the landing. He rotates
further from earth than anyone in history. Alone,
he reaches the back porch of the moon, and is taken
into unrelenting darkness. Shadowed from Earth and Sun,
unreachable by radio for 48 minutes.
He learns new definitions of silence. It sounds
like the waiting room for death. He exhales
just to see the mist that gathers on the glass.
He speaks the names of his children aloud
and wonders if right and wrong mean anything
in a time and place that will never exist to anyone else.
With his head bowed, this is his confessional:
A vessel where he could speak without guilt. Where he could
fill a place without gravity with the stories of those held down by it.
How many walked out of their homes that night,
into a light breeze, catching the reflection of their faces
in wood-framed windows, just to look at the moon,
because it was different now? Attainable. How many walked out
to their streets, backyards, and rooftops without a word,
eyes wide, lit up and moon white because they wanted to feel
the night like he did? To stand, as still as the axis on which we spin.
Michael Sarnowski, GS, MFA
Honorable Mention:
Lesson
Brookmeade Plantation, November 1848
Sarah taught Eliza who showed Naomi the way.
Naomi guided Phyllis and she passed it along to Bell
who met me at sundown behind the curing barn
on the day she’d heard my blood had come.
De mens gon visit wuns dey nos yous ripe.
Keeps clean an don’t go tuh de Missus fuh rags.
In silence, she walked me almost half a night’s time through the fields
past Crawley’s Farm, across Borden’s Creek and onto the edge
of Vaughn’s Plantation. Step inside de row. Stay low
below de blooms. Don’t russle de stawks. N’er take more
dan two bolls from each plant an yoos yo skirt fuh bundlin.
I was no longer at Brookmeade hanging clothes on a line, watching
rows of corn ease towards the horizon and hearing the horses broken
and mated under the hands of Black Joe. This white softness won’t give
from the husk easy. Wun uh us’s go tuh gather de cottun fuh alluh de guls,
e’ry full moon. Yous gone get enuff fuh alluh us by yo self nekst time.
Crossing back over the creek, I raise my bundled skirt, lower myself
and wash the stickiness from my thighs. I leave the cloth torn from Young Miss’s
old dress and let Bell show me how far inside to push the cotton.
Her calloused fingers stir inside me with each word.
Count de pieces an make sho tuh get em all out.
I hear the muffled voice of Young Miss’s teacher: one – two – three – four…
At de en uh yo floodin gim tuh Henry, an when he go tuh diggin
de nekst grave, he’ll toss alluh us’s ole darkened cottun in.
Patterns
Nashville, TN 1959
Mama had eight white papers
lining the living room floor.
When faces were washed
of oatmeal, milk and minute steaks,
we stood gap legged, facing the wall,
each foot assigned to its sheet. There,
on her knees, sighing with each stretch,
she traced – heel, to instep, to toes.
We shared the scissors.
Howard, John, Vivian, Joyce.
Me last, always waiting, looking
as the older ones moved
precisely along the lines.
And mine would be jagged, scalloped:
a foot with teeth
or lace, maybe.
The ’58 Chevy carried us
past bus benches, 1st Baptist and Miss Jessie’s Juke Joint -
downtown to Harvey’s, where a salesgirl
called Mama Eileen.
We kept our coats on and mouths shut while
Eileen sat us on a bench.
Eileen told the salesgirl three styles in two sizes for each of us.
Eileen lined the boxes up in front of the bench.
Eileen moved down the line,
removed one shoe from each box,
slid a white paper foot in,
felt inside with her brown skinned hand,
re-wrapped the shoes and replaced each lid,
stacked eight boxes on the counter,
pushed the others aside, pointed to her tower
and said, we’ll take it.
Stephanie Pruitt, GS, MFA
Judge: Jeff Hardin
