Competition Winners – October

DSCF4808Festive thanks to all who entered our Christmassy competition. Our judge, Robin Thomas, had a difficult job, but here are the winners, whose poem/flash will be published on lovely Christmas (post)cards! Special congrats to Elly Nobbs who has been independently selected for a second time!

 

 

 

WINNERS

Poetry:

The Caribou Cow Takes A Sick Day At Home In Late December & Reflects
 
You see, I did not bear a calf by any means, conventional or otherwise,
no artificial insemination, no test-tube cloning, no amoebic-like
splitting, no immaculate conception, no parthenogenesis — if I HAD
reproduced prolifically, steadily, inevitably —  after all these millennia
the sky would now be covered with teams of sleighs, like a Milky Way expanded
across all possibilities of space & time with countless more
illuminated leaders thus available —  all from me — all prone,
it’s true, to head colds (it’s freezing up there), the sniffles and red noses.
The genes co-inherited it seems. Then the ball would have been firmly in someone
else’s court — to produce an infinite number of santas
and also the means for easy, fuss-less franchising
… but I decided not to.

Elly Nobbs

Flash Fiction:

Naming Fate

I watch the social worker’s smiling face as she carries the swaddled bundle towards me. “Your daughter,” she offers.

I close my eyes, too afraid to look just yet. My thoughts race and my hands shake. Breathless and tingly all over, I shout in my head: Believe!

I reach out past my grief and receive her into my barren arms. The warmth and weight of her feels right, like she belongs. I look down; she looks up, and the years of aching and worrying and waiting release, dropping onto her downy head like quick summer rain.

Soft laughter from familiar voices fills the room. I join them and wipe away my tears while memorizing the pink pucker of her lips and the curve of her creamy cheek. I bring her closer, bow my head, and breathe in the scent of my forever.

They said it was “luck” that brought her to me, but I’ll call her Fate.

Shermie Rayne

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