First Place | Poetry Writing Contest
57th New Millennium Award for Poetry
Jed Myers of Seattle, Washington for “One on One”
Myers will receive $1,000 and publication both online and in print.
One on One
I know, you didn’t go till I’d turned sixty
and gray. Still, you’ve got a nine-year-old
wondering—can’t hurt to ask—if you’ll play
one-on-one with me at the hoop outside Marty’s
kitchen. And I want to show you how I can grab
glistening dragons from under flat rocks
in the creek down the cliff behind Elliot’s. Look,
I climb the sheer boulder wall where the stream
disappears out back of the Horowitz’s. Give it
a shot, Pop? Or strap skates on and glide with me
over the hot summer asphalt, sun melting
the street enough our steel wheels’ll leave shallow
tracks. Show up will you, through one of these
cloud-chamber windows. A kid wants you back
for some two-hand touch. For a long endzone pass
I can catch. Or let’s do my wish for a walk
along Manayunk’s old canal. There’s a trail now
that hugs river far as Parker Ford. We could
make it an overnight, camp there on the banks….
Dreaming of course, that you’re what flickers
this candle, your breath that shivers the light.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jed Myers is author of three books of poetry, most recently Learning to Hold (Wandering Aengus Press, 2024), winner of the Wandering Aengus Press Editors’ Award, and previously The Marriage of Space and Time (MoonPath Press) and Watching the Perseids (Sacramento Poetry Center Book Award). His poems have appeared recently in Rattle, The Poetry Review, RHINO, Hole In The Head Review, Terrain.org, Solstice, Nimrod International Journal, River Heron Review, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. Myers lives in Seattle, where he’s Editor of the journal Bracken.
One on One © 2024 Jed Myers
Thank you, Jed Myers. I appreciate the casual, personal tone of a conversation with someone very familiar. I also enjoy visualizing the father-son outings and shared activities that make up a childhood.
Thanks, Molly! Helps to hear that the tone–just the tone I was fortunate to share with a lively dad–does come across and help the poem!
I love Jed’s poems. Each one touches, awakens and inspires me.
Ah, Bob! Then poetry is really working in your life!
Having shared a bit of childhood with Jed, this one really hits home – straight to the heart.
Wow, Preston! Yes! We ran around together in that very territory! Great to know the reminiscences are stirred by the poem!
Beautiful poem, Jed! So many layers of nostalgia, yearning, gratitude, and grief. Bravo!
Ah, Jill, you seem to resonate with the uncanny simultaneity of reminiscent joy and remembrance’s longing. Seems they cannot be separated!
Jill, your comment has me thinking of the mix–the savor of rich memories and the ache of what can never again be, along with what never was, what lives in imagination in place of memory….
I just loved it. The memories of times gone by are so, so precious. And I especially loved that he is still with you, flickering the candle. Thank you for that!!!