The Geist Jackpine Sonnet Contest is underway and to make things interesting Geist is posting some of the submissions for you to read and comment on. Each poem will be posted anonymously (but with permission from the authors) and comments on the poem will not be considered in the judging. Remember, contest closes July 1st, so get writing!

A Large Stake

Dear Snappy; I have tried to play for a large stake, and if I succeed all will be well. If I don’t, I shall be happy to pop off in the midst of such an adventure.

—from Amelia Earhart’s will, excerpted in the New York Times, June 4 1928

Night, and the air smells of salt. The men asleep upstairs,

their bellies full of unending mutton. Oh, the mutton.

I fear I shall begin to sprout hooves. You could lose

the houses amongst the potatoes and inevitable cabbages,

Pole fences straining against the slanting wind and its

calamities. In the quiet kitchen, yesterday’s bread and

a crock of butter. Violent purple berries. Three hen’s eggs.

Who could turn stone into such plenty?

Twenty-nine years have conspired to bring me here

to these chill before-dawn gettings up.

My breath materializing in the fog as if I were

Shackleton marching slowly to his grave.

A sliver of June rises beyond the horizon.

I stand at the window, singing to the horseman.