Amy Lowell Prize Honorable Mention, selected by Martha Collins
Billy’s Valentine
I sent her a valentine
everything is red red
red wavy lines
nervous tics
it sicks not sucks some
hearts write terror no error
where kisses disappear peer
on the side of a face appear
face like an ace
race down
red lace loneliness
I wrote her a
a valentine can’t send
just end
end here
fear hear
valentines
litter the floor
just send
don’t end
you you you don’t
don’t know no way
loneliness
don’t know loneliness
yes no grasp
love lapsed
grasp try
a beautiful thing
grasp a beautiful
what loneliness is you
you have to start somewhere
Lee Varon is co-editor of the 2018 Ibbetson Street Press Spare Change News Poems: An Anthology by Homeless People and Those Touched by Homelessness. In 2018, Sunshot Press published her poetry collection, Shot in the Head, and Encircle Publications her chapbook, Letters to a Pedophile.