Lorri Neilsen Glenn - signal hill, nl

First Place: 48 hour poetry contest 2003

You spy it next to your foot, glinting under the wind-bitten scrub that clings
to the bank. Obsidian, you think, the word itself a jewel and your tongue

a reverent finger, but no, more likely granite, equable custodian of this bleak
and savage point where the wind’s good arm is fickle, can pitch you over

the bank with ease, alms for the Atlantic. The smooth stone in your fist
an unblinking optic of this hard place, this land that lures with ice and rock

to inure you to something raw you had forgotten, the stubborn wraith
of death. And so you walk, plant yourself against the cold wall of wind, become

an arc on the same barren hill Marconi used to draw a line of sound,
meridian of the human voice, across the air and over water, before words became

contagion, before signals crackled skies, wilding like the sea itself. Granite
sweetens against your skin, a receiver, you hope, for scattered tales. Like this—