Youth Prize
Like nighttime snow, the seals float, suspended behind the glass walls built into the docks, the aquarium. A foot of glass between them and the filthy sea, city built, land shaped, trash patch innovation. Odor denoting algae and motor oil. Tourists march the boardwalk, sitting like triumphant soldiers, feet dangling over the granite walls. The hotel that does not pay its workers shines like slick sea stone. The strikers take breaks from their chant, toes in the short, poisoned grass, looking toward the airport, across the harbor, counting the departing planes and imagining the skid marks of new arrivals.
Isabelle Goodrich, 16 Years old,
Hyde Park.