Quarterly Award
Winner of the quarterly award, judged by Joan Ellen Ketrys, past president of the Connecticut Poetry Society.

RIFLEMAN’S PANTOUM
Baghdad:  March 19, 2003
We wait and sweat in our machines—
by ten the sun is raising heat-waves.
We’re only twelve Marines.
This desert sky, a smoggy haze.

By ten the sun is raising heat-waves
over miles of vacant, yellow sand;
This desert sky, a smoggy haze—
the fires burn, well-planned.

Over miles of vacant, yellow sand
enemy tanks retreat and die.
The fires burn, well-planned,
and their widows in the cities cry.

Enemy tanks retreat and die.
Across this arid, barren land,
widows in the cities cry
and children pray with folded hands.

Across the arid barren land
the same twelve meals get old.
Do children pray with folded hands?
Tonight we shiver, not from cold.

The same twelve meals get old.
The city stills when bombers fly—
tonight we shiver, not from cold:
explosions make the hours go by.

The city stills when bombers fly.
We are only twelve Marines.
Explosions make the hours go by—
We wait and sweat in our machines.

Daniel Berkner