First prize winner of the 1st Jackpine Sonnet Contest.

Dear Snappy: I have tried to play for a large stake, and if I succeed all will be well. If I don’t, I shall be happy to pop off in the midst of such an adventure.

—from Amelia Earhart’s will,
excerpted in the New York Times, June 4, 1928

Night, and the air smells of salt. The men asleep upstairs,
their bellies full of unending mutton. Oh, the mutton.
I fear I shall begin to sprout hooves. You could lose
the houses amongst the potatoes and inevitable cabbages,
Pole fences straining against the slanting wind and its
calamities. In the quiet kitchen, yesterday’s bread and
a crock of butter. Violent purple berries. Three hen’s eggs.
Who could turn stone into such plenty?

Twenty-nine years have conspired to bring me here
to these chill before-dawn gettings up.
My breath materializing in the fog as if I were
Shackleton marching slowly to his grave.
A sliver of June rises beyond the horizon.
I stand at the window, singing to the horseman.