We had an enormous number of excellent submissions for our Fall 2016 Poetry Contest, and we’re excited to announce that we have two third place winners. “Berfin” by Carl Boon is one of our amazing winners, and we hope you enjoy it!
BERFIN
Berfin above her
Maiden’s Tower notebook
attempts to sketch
her feelings. I tell her
focus on the tower instead,
and why your mother stands
over okra, bargaining
vegetables and affection.
The kitchen’s acrid
and hot. What she feels
is out there, her brother’s pleas
for French fries,
her father’s disinterest.
The six o’clock news
says Istanbul’s an upheaval.
This is better
than the boy who’s wronged her,
better a street of bakers
than the sadness of one.
Worse things are coming.
Carl Boon lives in Izmir, Turkey, where he teaches courses in American culture and literature at 9 Eylül University. His poems appear in dozens of magazines, most recently Burnt Pine, Two Peach, Ink In Thirds, and Poetry Quarterly. He is also a 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee.
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