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Fellows' Poetry Prize 2007 - Second Prize Winner

At the End

 

 

 

At the end
they brought lipstick
for mouths empty
of everything
lips pursed
in the last bone-break
shit-pit fall
smudged red

 

a girl
not yet my mother
waited for her lipstick ration
the grief from Daddy

 

it came with gas

and pills
it came and stayed

 

my mother lingers
on to get her lipstick ration
she waits
for Daddy
till bone-break
her mouth empty
of everything
lips pursed
for the final
shit-pit fall

 

no lipstick comes

 

 

Kim Rooney

 

 

 

UPDATED: July 29, 2008
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