Archivos de Categoría: IV Version

THIRD PLACE The oldest subway station in the nation. Where the Green and Red Lines meet. Where I get confused and take the wrong train, wind up in Quincy only to turn around. Where the peanut man sold hot, oily, peanuts in brown bags. That salt tang memory still twists my tongue. Where my mother […]

SECOND PLACE The air smells like coconuts and tuna fish sandwiches. Our granny cart is full with a Styrofoam cooler, under a plaid blanket, under frayed and folded towels, under mom’s crossword puzzle. Her blue and white folding chair holds on with three bungee cords. We girls shuffle together, sun kissed noses and shoulders – […]

FIRST PLACE YOUTH CATEGORY Home. I let my coat hang free. It waves in the brisk air like a tattered flag. Sweet Spanish music warms my bones, matching the drum of my heels against the concrete. The trees are dry, but they tower over me like giants. The pond is dying but it stretches farther […]

SECOND PLACE YOUTH CATEGORY In our house we have a small version of Boston Common At Twilight enclosed in tinted blue glass. I remember thinking at first that the colors didn’t match; the warm, dusty browns of the painting with the cold, clean blue of the frame. One winter, we walked past Frog Pond. I […]

FIRST PLACE The apartment in my new country contained a scuffed dining table, a stained futon, and one standing lamp. “I’ll find things for you,” the Super said. Over days, an oak bookcase, floral rugs, and Chilean treats his wife baked. In the garden, he beckoned me to a woman walking her dog. “She needs […]