“Crossing,” by Branden Boyer-White
When Clara first saw him Virgil reminded her of a horse. He was tall, two hands above the other men in the street; he wore his working life on his body in the strength of his upright back, the stomp of his gait. Wind and sun marked the skin of his cheeks. The War was over, the Union had won and men were returning from the battlefields ready to make a life. But this man was not a soldier. He had a wagon that Clara watched him hitch to...
“History of Glass,” by Kathleen Savino
Even the ancients knew: Glass is neither solid nor liquid, but in another state always in between. Old windows are usually thicker at the bottom, since over centuries, glass drifts as if it has known warmth. We opened the window gate and climbed out onto the fire escape because it was too warm inside. I leaned against your back, lit a cigarette, breathed until the orange point met my fingers. You told me that you first knew you were...
Kathleen Savino Awarded Fall 2011 Orlando Poetry Prize
KATHLEEN SAVINO holds an M.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia University. Currently, she is an assistant director of Columbia University’s Writing Center and a writing consultant at Baruch College. She is working on a book, How To Sleep Jackknife, that combines queer history, Goethe’s light theories and a love story, among other things. An excerpt was published in DIAGRAM’s All Essay Spectacular issue. Her winning poem,...
“How to Become a Dyke, Step Three, Birds,” by Nickole Brown
A book of birds. A story in birds. Each breath a bird, each dream slipped from your ear to your pillow out the window a song: cardinals laughing at you—birdie birdie birdie— on a lonely Valentines, then robins swarming the last bits of red another February day, so many of them on the holly tree the branches tick with their picking and you stop the car. But you are so cold, you have to get to the store, and in the florescent buzz of...