Poetry, Second Place
Lewes, DE
Reclining on a blanket, she’s smiling
as if trying to hold back a secret,
but she’s failing. Caught
in midmorning light, chin angled,
ash-blonde hair in strict curls, school-girl
bangs ruffled by a salty breeze. Any minute
you expect her blushed lips to part, to spill
what she cannot contain. Girdled in tight
latex swimsuit splashed with lilac
blossoms, she gazes at the photographer,
her future husband. A portrait of first love,
she is a singular flower from O’Keeffe. A peony,
its tight-fisted cluster about to unfurl. My father
snaps the camera just in that moment, catches her,
my mother, opening, ready to bloom.