by Summer Awad
2nd Place – Flash 405, June 2019: “Legacy”
Poetry
Did you know they make bras for burial?
Yes, 6-feet-underwire, push-up daisies.
Will my conserved cleavage appall bearers of my body?
Those casket cacklers, what will they have to say of me
Except: “She came from a long line of well-endowed women?”
Judge’s Comments:
It’s been said poetry gets more difficult the fewer lines you have to work with. But this piece makes it look so easy. With its wonderfully dark humor and exceptional wordplay (“6-feet-underwire, push-up daisies”) this poem urges us to reflect on the memory left behind by marked and coded bodies. Its well-crafted lines and subtle sound-stitching guide us through the poem’s contours towards a profound silence at its close.
Summer Awad, a Tennessee native of Palestinian descent, is a poet, activist, and playwright. Her play WALLS: A Play for Palestine was performed at the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival. She currently lives in Knoxville and work as a case manager for Bridge Refugee Services, the local refugee resettlement affiliate. She performs spoken word under the stage name “Uncensored.”