Portia Steele Award Organization(c)

Second Place Winner, Poetry

Sulptor in Love
by
Barbara Lynn Silberg
Houston, TX.

                        As he sits at the edge of the snow-cased window—
                                    the full moon limning
                                                the arc of one sharp cheek
                                                               and his eyes
                                                                       as dark as mulled summer wine—
                        taking up his chisel
                                    in warm, graceful fingers
                                                to begin carving the cold-white marble
                                                            he has centered in the middle of the room,
                        he thinks of she
                                    whose lithe and fine-boned form
                                                lies dormant
                                                            in the memory of his hands.

                        She is the mother of their unformed child.
                        She is the stubborn record keeper
                                    of their ins and outs,
                                                their ups and downs of love.

                        For him, she
                                    is the ceaseless beauty—
                                                the vulnerable, aching joy—
                                                            of falling autumn leaves,
                                                                        of fire against cold air,
                                                            of blood against bone,
                                                                        of shaped stone
                                                                                    against unyielding time.