Fare Forward Poetry Competition, Honorable Mention

     Eclipse-like, unfamiliar. My own name
Becomes an incoherence when I sign
     The bottom of a check, a doctor’s form.
I introduce myself. What do I mean?

     Chaos is not a theory. I mean, it’s not
Just that, but a description of the real.
     Patterns and repetitions in the knot
We call this life defy our patient skill

     To pick it open, tie it back together
In some way that makes sense. Makes sense to us,
     I mean—to us, who try to read the weather.
My back-porch table holds a scattered cosmos:

     Disjointed, bleached-down deer-bone specimens,
Last year’s wrens’ nest blown down from the the eaves,
     Split brown cicada shells, some blank-eyed snakeskins,
Brittle, tesselated. Heart-shaped leaves

     Unfurling on the understory trees
Cast shadows within shadows. My children’s faces
     Turn up in photographs, each a surprise
I know by name. Say I set seven places

     For lunch, though there were only six of us
When everyone lived here. Then, our existence
     Was chaos. I loved it. And that seventh place?
I invented it just now, to make not sense

     But sound. I needed syllables. Say I did
Set the extra place, though. Why would I do
     A thing like that, unless the unexpected—
Another child, a late-comer, a new

     Elijah at the window—was the way
The world cohered? Perpetual resonances,
     Crazings of experience, each day
Rising from its grave, its random promises

     Lined up like children by a schoolroom door,
Wild spring weather outside answering
     The rhythmic murmurs of their hearts, and more—
That’s how it is. This thing is like that thing.