Now that I have a boyfriend

First Honorable Mention - Naomi Phillips

Judge's Citation on "Now that I have a boyfriend":

This poem is compelling, and I kept rereading it, in part because the poem seems simplistic when it is actually complex and rich in its emotion and structure. The prose poem's repetition and speed builds power that captures the speaker's sudden and insistent desire to have a baby. The details are evocative and reveal both the narrative and the speaker's emotional landscape, both in what they see and in the transformation of ordinary objects: "My boyfriend cradles a thermos of coffee, steam billowing in the morning air. In his hands it is a baby bottle." Everything the speaker sees speaks to this "need to be filled," and the list of baby appearances reveals the speaker's unexpected emotions; that is, I feel the speaker's desire mixed with bewilderment at their changing feelings. The final image is striking, tense, and evocative: "Each night my thumbnail pushes through silver foil to take small, white pills that look like baby teeth. Each night they are harder to swallow." 

Now that I have a boyfriend

there are babies everywhere. We walk around the small park by our house, clasped hands
swaying between us, and there is a young mother on the creaking swing set, a baby on her lap.
The baby giggles without stopping for breath until I am breathless. Each peal of laughter rings
through me until I am hollow and buzzing. I am empty and I look up at my boyfriend and I need
to be filled. We go to the grocery store. He rubs my goose-bumped shoulders in frosted glass
aisles. I curl into him. There is a cart parked in front of the whole milk and there is a baby in the
cart and the baby leans towards us, bow lips parting, hands grabbing at empty air. My boyfriend
waves and pulls faces that turn the baby’s eyes three times their normal size. Something inside
me aches. My boyfriend cradles a thermos of coffee, steam billowing in the morning air. In his
hands it is a baby bottle. There are babies in the cars we pass. There are babies on the TV.
Each night my thumbnail pushes through silver foil to take small, white pills that look like baby
teeth. Each night they are harder to swallow.