readers for the prize

They flap in and settle on shelves, to be read. Not
"manuscripts" - none of them written by hand - but
thank God for that. It's quite hard enough

to get through these stacks.

They've entrusted us.

"Submissions"
are the last thing they should be called,
insistent as they are, rife with demands
to be read,
loved, turned into gold.

Art for hope's sake, and praying to be sold
as if only

a gold medal applique, sufficient with glint
of prestigious renown could be affixed
to adorn a corner
of a cover as-yet undesigned - so

there's no chance of judging by that. But if only

a jury could peer at it justly, just so
in the light, and declare it triumphantly fit

- fit for something, with something,
in something, into
some great list, a roll
to be read out ringing in canapes, honors, champagne
splits and somersaults inside amidst the tasteful restraint
of cantaloupe-watermelon background white noise
from a bantering crowd,

well-watered and fed, and
content, no
happy to be there, no

here,

for this launch. Now. Everyone, may I just say...?

There's a long way to go from that
to this.

If only just one

from these stacks and stacks to be read
through by us, just us two

for the prize - would make us gasp,
and stop cold with skins tingling, heart
dropped out of its course for a beat
or two, and send sudden blood coursing washing away
all this inside feeling

of having been someone betrayed and betraying

someone. Some many
someones,

who've all shut eyes hard and smiled
- quite strained, and
after one last embrace, sent

babies to us.

In reed baskets, hoping we'll prove
ourselves
to be pharaoh's daughters, and not
crocodiles, oh

what we would do

in all of our years?

for such a prize