Poetry Contest Winner, Third Prize, Spring/Summer 2024

Kelly DuMar

Beach of Hvar with Po

We’re swimming for shore
from our anchored boat. Po tells

her dream of last night. Daughter’s
lush hair falls in a loose

mess down her back. Po gathers
strands in her hands, tries to braid––

but all the daughter-hair slips
through her fingers. Girls we birthed

into women. On the sandless beach,
we lie down face up to the cirrus.

Backs burn—ovals of limestone, clean
as clouds, hot from noon-sun.

Who says we can’t take it? Bed of stones
over eons formed—we’re a weight

upon them. Po puts a hot, flat, white one big
as her palm on her bare sternum. I do the same.

Burning our breast bones. Stones over bones,
lids, lips, upturned palms, pears of our wombs.

Our own mothers—where every cell of skin
we’re searing now began—are ripened, dried

and gone. Stones fall as we stand—