Poetry Corner presents the three poems selected for prizes and included in “Surveyors of Worlds,” the anthology for the 14th Annual Santa Cruz County High School Poetry Competition. The competition was judged by Neli Moody, Robert Sward and Beth Vieira, and conducted by Poetry Santa Cruz.

wanderlust

Smell of the estuary—
of townies burning cardboard boxes
and old pacific madrone,
Throwing beach sand on bonfires
in drunken bids for glass

Four stars and the summer fog
arriving to swallow the lighthouse
and fuse the sea to our skins
with feet bared to the scuttling of sand-dabs
in warm El Niño waters

And I am strange to find comfort in staring
out over the shadows of rocks, to breathe
the currents—surveyors of worlds—to claim
elsewheres and antipodes on the
Inhale, Exhale

This is a kind of hoboism, a vagrancy,
a fickle gravity that chips at
tree house nostalgia and inert afternoons.
It leaves me dreaming of ghost ships
in empty marinas
Of the keening and whistling of boxcars
and feet too lame to catch them

But I remain the olfactory wayfarer,
sinus full of sea salt and imaginary
coordinates on the tongue:
A curry, India is on the air
the too-ripe sweetness of chutney and
Everyman’s sweat
The British Isles the heady scent of
churchyards and subterranean trains,
rain and wet earth.

And I would live to count on
rigging and rudders, booms and keels,
take to hijacking kayaks in their
highlighter glory
to paddle the straw hat clutter of
the Panama Canal
or sail around the melts of Patagonia

For one final point B, a terminus
that terminal Bermuda Triangle, where
vessels are said to ascend or drop
anchor in Atlantis, or simply to submerge
in froth and circumstance

There in doldrums and daydreams
It is the destination to end all destinations
—deep pressure, or thin air—
But alert, I would listen still to railroads
clutching dog-eared travelogues and
envying the driftwood.

…

Grey dawn
and the boats drop at the docks
windows misted, tethers dripping
The would-be wanderlust
stifled in down and dyed cotton
and ten more minutes please.

Nika States, Ark Independent Studies, First Prize

On the Seventh Day

I never lie, except on Sundays.
Sundays are the days when mothers
chop pancakes into squares.
Every mother, every square: the same.
Sundays are when coffee machines burn
the French Roast and you have to hear
seven couples say seven times
the seven things wrong with their coffee.
Sundays are choking in the smoke
of the Camels the Chefs share under the staircase
that has the faded lettering “Employee”
with only two Es.
Sundays are for collecting every nickel
of the tip that bastard left inside his
pool of maple syrup
and for fighting over missing orders
of sourdough toast.
Sundays are filled with the smell
of bacon and potato grease
and the ranch dressing that is
sprayed across your apron
every Sunday.
I never lie, except on Sundays
and even then I only lie to Mr. and Mrs. Gray
as they come in from church.
“How are you, Olivia?”
I pour their cream,
I wash their plates.
It’s Sunday and I say
“Just fine.”

Olivia Murphy, Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School, Second Prize

Candlelight

It wasn’t much of a date:
we sliced onions by candlelight.
I saw my reflection in your knife blade
and knew you could see yours in mine.

That night, for the first time,
you didn’t run around,
tongue out, like a panting dog
after ladies,
and I didn’t have to look
for your shoes outside some lucky girl’s door.

Naomi Barshi, Georgiana Bruce Kirby Preparatory School, Third Prize

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