2004 Honorable Mention

EMMA HULSE

TO SYLVIA

You breathed in gas
and no more could spit out
sonnets, and villanelles.

Tell me,

did it sniff
like the stink of rotten eggs,
like a putrid shroud that
sent the stars packing?

Or

did it rise,
like the first wail after birth,
like the sigh of dawn?