The Lessons

by Jim Zola
The Waters
Second Place, December 2011
Judged by Nathalie Handal


This is the place they take you in
wash your feet

you sip the water of forgetfulness
language is a spoon

a young girl squats to pee
behind the slaughterhouse

touches
the place the body forgets

they take you in
to send you out again


This poem breaks my heart. It’s quietness is piercing – delivering lessons or rather sentences, that devastate - The poet sculpts each word, beat, emotion, image, and leaves us at the center of this small monument where little feet weep. --Nathalie Handal