EDWARD MADILL: FIRST PRIZE IN NCETA'S HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT LAUREATE AWARDS

Of this poem, the first place winner in the High School Category of the Student Poet Laureate Awards, Cathy Smith Bowers said--"Oh wow! This young poet is amazing!"

Ed is now a freshman at UNC-Asheville. While at Smoky Mountain High School, he volunteered to help with the Friends of the Library, among other organizations. He will receive an award of $250 and, of course, a certificate at the Fall NCETA Conference at Wake Forest University. I hope he can come read this poem. He's a fine reader of poetry.

Your Mom

Your mom thinks she can talk

To animals.

Which is cool….

But I still get freaked out,

Especially when she looks my cat in the eye and

Sincerely asks him

“What’s wrong?”

To this my cat licks himself

(there were a couple of grungy spots).

He saunters over to the litter box and pees.

I smell a whiff of ammonia.

Your mom sulks to the living room couch,

dejectedly,

Audubon prints hanging in the

corner.

Your mom thinks she can talk

To animals.

Which is cool….

But every time I see her walk past your “pets”

(The man you keep in the hamster cage,

the woman that lives in that cute miniature house

Out in your front yard,

Or even you—

With your nice nose and your okay figure),

I want to say:

“Hey!

Not only did you confuse the

Piss out of my cat,

But none of us know

What’s going on in your head….

Which is not cool.”

And I still remember that day when you asked:

“Doesn’t everyone’s mommy talk to animals?”

And for show and tell you brought in a poem,

Dictated to your mom by your parakeet.

And all the while

In the background of your house,

People whisper unheard syllables

About the sun, the moon, and the stars

(And maybe

Something about the circle of life,

Our place in the world, and all those questions

That keep us up at night)

To the thinning air,

Near the only window in your house.

Edward Madill