Monday, July 01, 2019

2019 Second-Place Winner James Crews

WINTER MORNING
by James Crews

When I can no longer say thank you
for this new day and the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the space heater glowing
orange as it warms the floor near my feet,
I know it is because I've been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me
and believes he deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,
and watch the streetlights outside winking
off one by one like old men closing their
cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors hard against the morning
and see the steaming coffee in their mugs
kissing their chapped lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries white into
the icy air around their facesthen I can
remember this one life is a gift each of us
was handed and told to open: Untie the bow
and tear off the paper, look inside
and be grateful for whatever you find
even if it is only the scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the fingers long after you've finished eating it.
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James Crews lives on part of an organic farm with his husband in Vermont. He is the author of two collections of poetry, The Book of What Stays (Prairie Schooner Prize, 2011) and Telling My Father (Cowles Prize, 2017), and his work has appeared in Ploughshares, Raleigh Review, Crab Orchard Review and The New Republic, among other journals. Crews also recently edited the anthology, Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection (Green Writers Press, 2019). He teaches creative writing at SUNY-Albany.

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