Poetry Contest Winners :: Sixth Contest :: Third Place Winner

Honey and Salt

I have fallen in love again.
It happened yesterday
at the college library
where Abbot and Alcott
and Anderson followed me
down sweet-scented aisles
of furniture gloss and leather
book bindings.

When I got to the "esses,"
I looked for him in vain,
but across the room on a table
of scattered paperbacks,
ragged and free for the taking
he called to me - Carl Sandburg
and his "Honey and Salt,"
111 pages tanned with age,
77 poems of moonlight, roses
and groceries...

So I walked him home,
the tiny book clasped to my heart,
grinning like a June schoolgirl,
feeling the way I did then
when the sun lightened my hair
from dull brown to honey,
when there was a skip to my step
and a love song in my eyes...

I smiled knowing I would have
someone to curl up with this summer.