Let the mind go blank,
I say,
Figure out why you're smiling.
Nothing comes to mind.
Air is thick with greasy seafood.
(Last sip of Kendall-Jackson grape.)
Ah yes, now write a few more lines.
Had to buy the drink myself.
Nobody sang that stupid song.
No flaming mound of chocolate.
Suddenly, I still don't own a watch.
Outside myself, to be precise
(plus or minus several minutes),
at present I have:
this table by the fence,
the last few minutes of my 20's,
no idea whatsoever,
no more Chardonnay.
Take a long, deep-
fried breath.
Look up, and
miss the sky.
But many miles of night below,
high, dry, and blind within its sanctum,
there glows a timid shade of white
beneath a galvanized parasol.
Both share a common bolt
atop a headless, former spruce
that was felled in Mississippi
about half my life ago.
Floodlight overflows the gutter,
cascades down onto an umbrella,
which sprouts from, and shelters,
one table on the terrace
of a particular watering hole
(whose owner really isn't Joe).
Listless nothing in the shade.
I rest my head against Joe's fence.
And about a foot above the fishnet
nailed to the awning for effect,
there is precisely one spot—
situated just so,
between light post and eaves trough—
where, by white, incandescent backlight,
plain sight is mine alone.
The spider gazes back.
Welcome.
Far away in Napa Valley,
fruit grows ripe on a vine.
I greet my party's only guest,
who savors the moment.
And maybe it’s 8:37,
like three decades ago.
Maybe the air
is really just old songs.
Maybe I don't need a cake
if I know how to taste chocolate.
Maybe I grant my own wishes.
Blow out thirty years of candles.
I feel a breeze I've never felt
fill the skin I've never worn
full as the moon I've never seen,
and I look out into everywhere.
Gold trophy winner
Honorable mention
Adding your comment:
Just so it'll say the judge actually commented. Again. 
Nevertheless, here we both are, tried and true survivors. Isn't that the whole point, after all, to get older? Well done, Morgan. Congrats on your well-deserved and hard-won trophies. And happy belated to ya, Sweetie, whenever that day might be. 
Thank you! And bless you, too.
)
for writing this, and giving me the opportunity to read. Thank you. This is bookmarked as my favourites.
