Winner

(This was prompted by two events: I joined a new writing site and a challenge was issued to write something that fit with a painting by Dali. I viewed the subject of the painting to be a fractured young girl. The other event was a conversation I had that found me explaining how distant I am from a certain family member - my maternal uncle. I have virtually no relationship with him. I've been thinking a lot about that non-relationship, how important he was to me as a child, and how the little girl in me was let down by him. I don't hold those hurts any more, but I know they changed me, I know I held him up to be something/someone he couldn't be. The adult in me realizes this and knows that I was shaped by that experience.)

Winner

Unaware of observation,
he didn’t choose Hero’s stance.
With deft motion he reached down
and moved a lock
from eyes that sought
Source
from mother’s brother.
He only stood where
life placed him.
Opportunity came but once
to shape, to mold
and fill the
G A P
left by father figure’d
O U T.
No time, no patience,
and no clatter heard when the
pedestal upon which he was placed
tipped over with life’s energies -
pulsing and pressing
as his sister’s child
watched the
Man of The Year
shake the dust from his
suitcoat and
move on to the
next Big Thing.