POETRY WINNER: I liked Imaginary Translation the best because it does what poetry should--provide momentary clarification while inhabiting some mystery of language. For that reason it was the best of the group. -Maxine Chernoff

Dark of sky
seems to you obtuse
Is it substantial? Honest?
Slips through your fingers
like rain in your little-hands.

Under your bed
or far away, over the earth’s curve
a shadow steals your will
and intentions,
forcefully unhousing them,
so that the place where you are
becomes a white field –
a meadow, empty.