Portia Steele Award Organization(c)

Second Place Winner, Poetry

Tubers
by
Susanna Lang
Chicago, Illnois

Not all that multiplies
is malign. Bread rises
in the pan, tubers double or triple
beneath the dirt, even the years
that mass in your tissue and bones
bring gifts. You wake in the night
and cnnnot sleep again.
The morning will be hard but now the light is yellow,
the blanket warmer, the music
sweeter at this hour.

Two new spots on your liver,
black and transparent white.
Just a few months
and the iris will bloom, more profusely
this year than last.