Cloudbank 18

This poem by Ronda Piszk Broatch was the winner of the Cloudbank 18 Prize. 

Refuge / Ronda Piszk Broatch

How do the Monarchs know the way from Canada to Mexico?
God shakes out her wings, rearranges her calendar, says trust me.

When we ordered sake, we got salmon. Such is beauty of mistranslation.
It is said that we look nothing like what others see. Mirrors lie, 

but what about photographs? Maybe our faces are puzzle pieces
God arranged on her Ouija board after sipping tequila.

Just because we are not bees—and who really knows this for sure? –doesn’t mean the waggle is off the table. Just because we’re not pigeons

doesn’t preclude us from gently pecking our mates.
Give yourself grace, a coworker tells me, when I look down 

and pat my belly. Her words grasp my hands, and kiss my palms.
The Douglas firs and the maples nod in unspoken trust.

When the monarchs reach Mexico, they become blankets for eucalyptus.
When God shakes her wings, rainbows unravel into billions of stars.

When we ordered salmon, the sake was the best we’d ever tasted.
When you said you desire to be fiercely alive, I mistook you for a firefly.

 It’s true that when God poured her myriad elements into my dreams,
I became a miracle of mistranslation, a puzzle piece found.

Milton J. Bates 
John Blair
John Bradley
Bruce Bond 
Ronda Piszk Broatch
Jenny Mary Brown
Christopher Buckley
Elizabeth Rae Bullmer 
Jenny Treadway Burke
Lynne Burnett
Jonathan Cohen 
Nick Conrad
David Daniel 
Deborah H. Doolittle
Ann Fisher-Wirth 
Alice Friman
Alyssa Froehling 
Joseph Geskey
Vanessa Haley 
Michelle Hartman 
Dennis Herrell 
H. L. Hix
Maya Janson
Richard Jordan
John Kooistra
Jill Kronstadt 
Robert Krut
Rosa Lane 
Lisa Lewis 

Sue Fagalde Lick
Rebecca Lilly
Kelly Madigan 
Suzanne Matson
Kathleen McGookey
Robin Michel
Robert Morgan
Michael Pearce
David Petruzelli 
Christine Potter
Sherry Mossafer Rind
Russell Rowland
Emily Schulten
Peter Serchuk
Marc J. Sheehan
Annette Sisson
Phillip Sterling
Tim Suermondt
Randolph Thomas 
Leslie Ullman 
Jonathan Weinert 
Tori Grant Welhouse 
Gabriel Welsch 
J.P. White
Melody Wilson 
Francine Witte
Gerald Yelle
Jianqing Zheng