Open Mic Poetry Winner
Poet: Linda Scheller
Cellist: Marina John Hanna
Note: This poem was published incomplete in the March issue.
“In the Heart Mountain Relocation Center”
Estelle Peck Ishigo (1899-1990)
“Imprisoned at the foot of the mountain, towering in its silence over the barren waste, we searched its gaunt face for the mystery of our destiny.” –from Lone Heart Mountain
While scouring dust
swipes the walls, splinter points stab
the backs of their hands.
She sketches the lives
in splinters, the wind-blown dust
and rough-hewn rooms.
Two rings smoothed by time
in miscegenational
exile sketch gold light.
Behind the barbed wire
they stand, hand in hand, watching
three kites in the sky.
The hands of the wind
shake the trembling paper,
a tethered hunger.
One kite snaps its string
and plummets earthward, swallowed
by the barbed wire maw.
Two boys imprisoned
within its jaws extricate
the kite from steel teeth.
