Shane Ward- Age: 19

17 April 2008

"Tulip Petals"

This life and all of its grandeur:

A grandmother sewing stitches of love in a sweater

For some younger brother sedated in her living room

And a cookie for his pleased soul.

A possum, once road kill,

Serving as fertilization for the infertile, gravel road

A tulip is the new, surrogate possum

As the man hanging from the gallows stares him down, his soul reincarnated as an innocent child.

A man, now eighteen

Strips the screw of its virginity

As he plows his way into maturity.