honorable mention, Short Prose Poetry Contest

You Were The Best Of Us – Poem by Joni Caggiano inspired by “The Child To Be” by Gabriela Marie Milton

Daylilies and lavender fall from a sky of bright eyes,
in the silhouette of a boat, under a quarter moon.
Born on the month of the ram
with your right fist on your pink cheek.
I was twenty, and you were my gift from God and my second love.
My milk came like a white river on the third day.
Red, your color, dwelling within the passion
where fire seared black, my white peasant dress.
Burning away the smell of gardenias and honeysuckle,
a miracle fashioned within our fervidness.
Meeting your father in an arid desert on foreign sand,
oh, how I was craving dreams, escape, and freedom.
He was to be my savior, but he was only a man.
Like the red coral of the sea, our child was the best of him and me.

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