2017 First-Place Winner--Jennifer L. Freed

Our 2017 First Place Winner is Jennifer L. Freed for her poem "At the Middle School Concert."

Jennifer L. Freed’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in literary journals and anthologies including Amsterdam Quarterly, the Common Ground Review, The Worcester Review, and Forgotten Women: A Tribute in Poetry; in the medical journals JAMA and Chest; and in a chapbook, These Hands Still Holding, a finalist for the 2013 New Woman’s 
Voices prize. Years ago (before husband, before children), she taught English in China and in then-Czechoslovakia. She now lives with husband and children in Massachusetts. Her website is jfreed.weebly.com.

At the Middle School Concert

by Jennifer L. Freed

The seventh grade band squeaks

through its festive repertoire,

and the harried day is still wound tight

along my spine.

I am checking the time,

thinking about the sixth grade chorus

and the eighth grade strings

still waiting to play,

thinking about the list of To-Do

I have not yet done,

when, from the stage,

or the air, or the whisper

of another mother passing near,

comes the sense

of being

here.

All at once I see

how the small boy beating the drums

is wagging his red head, beaming. 

How the boy on trombone wears neon

green socks beneath his khaki slacks. 

How the girl with gold satin shoes

and sparkling pink tulle

waves as she raises her flute.

Another girl clicks her high heels like Dorothy. 

The band teacher waves his baton

and bounces with verve.

Every note is brimming

with gorgeous imperfection.

We are held, all

of us, in the light

of this

fragile

night.