- Les Negres de Paris
“…Every back, / it seems, is a blood neighbor” | Kwame Dawes
- The Lesser Gods
“But what about all the modest / neglected deities–the overlooked” | by Ellen Bass
- Girl on a Liner
“I’m standing/on the edge of nothing, with a handkerchief,” | by Emily Berry
- On the Streets of Hanoi
“and the outsized appetites/I am shedding bit by bit” | by Katherine Towler
- Light
“I have apprenticed myself to light,/to the way it moves through the world” | by Emily Portillo
- The Duck Pond
“The pond rises and sways, wind-rippled/a gelatinous mirror ball waiting to fall” | by Daniel Zeiders
- Sunporch
“Our house was a seabed of alien vines/reaching to touch the windowsills.” | by Emily Leithauser
- The Daughter
“Yet, to love her this way is to love the blue of distances” | by Jody Rambo
- Listening to Michael Jackson in a Closet
“my son/can recognize Michael’s voice/anywhere” | by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
- Smallmouth
“It demands to be/ known. The gnats/ in their conductor’s/ dance.” | by Jordan Pérez
- Shell
“The sea is an incarnation of God./God is quiet.” | by Jordan Pérez
- One Heaven
“the nighttime grass/at eight years old,/run through with/starlight” | by K.T. Landon
- Lambing Season
“I knew better than to protest/but my shoulders sloped/like the sides of the valley” | by Laura Voivodeship
- Midday
“were almost twenty-five and twenty-eight:/even the connection on the phone was faint” | by Emily Leithauser
- A Night in Madina
“The stranger didn’t eat much/and she didn’t dance/and she didn’t remove her plastered shoes” | by Brian Gyamfi
- The Tree Carries Water
“Dandelions pass where I used to live./The gardener lets go of the river, the water whispers” | by Brian Gyamfi
- The Valley
“I took the boat out every morning,/allowing my hands to skim/the shimmering sky” | by Lauren Aliza Green
- Pack Your Bags
“In no time, he cannot/ see too far into himself, so full he is, so dull” | by Anna Leahy
- Navigation by Falling Stars
“Of course, some lives/ burn hotter or brighter than others” | by Anna Leahy
- Gloss
“No one is a machine of perpetual motion./ There’s more to it—to us” | by Anna Leahy
- The Hidden Springs
“I have a feeling for a moment that the elk is God—/ a god that we can watch.” | by Sarah Maclay
- Art Deco Sonnet
“O sleekness, O pizzazz, O mirrors, O chrome,/O remnant inklings of a light-struck world” | by Jacqueline Osherow
- Ghazal Season
“Once, I wrote a ghazal trimmed in gold,/ to mirror the implausible” | by Jacqueline Osherow
- Cochlea
“The murkiness, the smog, the thickened haze/ in me are hard to love.” | by Jehanne Dubrow, 2021 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- The Usual Suspects or a Chronological List of the Ways Men Have Referred to my Breasts:
“They’re my favorite part of you, Mama,/ my son says, pressing into them hard” | by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach, 2021 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Silence in Syria
“Melt the ink into my hands/ like the metal of a tank being welded./ Use this newspaper as a rag” | by Seif-Eldeine, 2021 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Exit
“On every door in this village/ there are last notes left by families/ crossing the sea to another land.” | by Rasaq Malik, 2021 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- The Starlight in Syria
“The wounded know stars are a furnace/ for mankind’s sins. The wounded curl themselves/ into a ball of starlight” | by Seif-Eldeine, 2021 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- I sat next to Adele on a plane and she bought me a house
“I’d gotten a fluky upgrade, moved from 38C to 4B./ She— a stranger still, was already sitting, a silver/ studded handbag at her feet,” | by Patrick Holloway, 2021 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- monarchs are the communication medium for when i die
“a tiny sun in my belly quieted by sweet tea & new tales” | by Phil SaintDenisSanchez, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Pluto Retires(And During The Exit Interview Sits Near a Wide Window While Watching a Violence of Florida Rainbow Wreckage Unleash Its Storm Over an Empty Magic Kingdom)
“Time to hand in your costume child./ – So much has happened here.” | by Michael Martin, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Wheel
“How I loved saying I was deeply skeptical of the adverb, very/ but then I got run over by a truck” | by Michael Martin, 2020 C.P Cavafy Finalist
- We Were the Kind
“to tell it true we’d say/ we don’t know what it is/ we’re nowhere near the end of.” | by Michael Martin, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Dent on an Old Hum
“I set the ghosts free./ I found a new way to wear my hat.” | by Michael Martin, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Any Minor Art World
“He’s far too young to be alone in this life/ and even a tiny frayed lawn chair can feel/ as heavy as a stranger.” | by Michael Martin, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Mother Tongue
“Walking to the shuq to buy tapoocheem, chalav, and lechem from a merchant who didn’t care—” | by Mari Pack, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Mammals, Mammals
“After learning the word mammal in first grade,/ I threw it at whatever moved.” | by Lance Larsen, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- Like A Thief in the Night
“My twitchy legs brood at never taking this wreck/ of bone spurs for a hike around the lake./ Meanwhile, my spirit says, don’t sweat it” | by Lance Larsen, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- If It Wasn’t My Daughter
“If it wasn’t/ my daughter, I wouldn’t have prayed like a man/ in a burning forest” | by Lance Larsen, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist
- An Amateur’s Guide to Summer
“crash kiss, pesto and blue corn chips kiss/ that was the summer you tracked them all” | by Lance Larsen, 2020 C.P. Cavafy Finalist