8th Annual Juried Reading
Finalist
Cristina Lawrence

Cristina Lawrence, a Chicago native, received her MFA in Writing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998. Her poems have appeared in VIA: Voices in Italian Americana as well as in local Chicago-based publications. Cristina is currently working on her first collection of poetry in addition to a collection of short stories about a woman’s meanderings in the “e-corporate” world.

Alloy

Below the bronze arc of streetlight,
organza evening shade, dusk sweeps
over cars, over brownstones, grass
hopscotch plots break pavement's wash,
a slow kiss to empty the ordinary
in a day.
                That's what we all want, a brilliant
glass shard mistaken for a diamond,
the factory's sunlit aluminum
a shimmering waterfall, blood's surge
with a knock at the door.
                Each moment carries the urgency
for something beautiful, a shoulder
electrified by a hand's touch telling us
we are here, we are cared for,
concrete shimmers with opal and stone.

--Cristina Lawrence

(C) 2002 The Poetry Center of Chicago
All Rights Revert Back to the Author Upon Publication.
No Portion of this poem may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author.