First Place, Poetry, NMW Awards 23

Tired of annotating my scars, trying to gain perspective
about my ordinary deaths, I watch men who have given
both legs to land-mines scoot on wheeled wooden sleds
to beg in the center of town or on the apron of a road.

Not wanting to founder in grief, I avoid lure of stupas,
burial monuments like one I just bought for my parents.
Trees fringing field scrub in predawn are deep violet
and remind me of my mother's inner elbows when blood

was taken or bruises on my father after early morning falls.
Nothing has ever scoured me like grief of women
who saw daughters dissolve on Pol Pot's forced marches
north into the jungle, or were forced to witness husbands

being eviscerated for sin of greed after eating foraged yams.
Sent to herd cattle, clear land, build huts, hearts that lived
through Khmer Rouge ruptured at the suicide of sons
who could not endure the crawl of that world. Ache

left in those mothers that nothing will soothe helps me
right myself. I'd vowed not to try and escape my loss
on tour buses that chase sunrise to ruins at Angkor Wat,
but learn from Cambodian food branded by the grief

of Khmer cooks who parse sweet and sour notes, alternate
solid and liquid, raw and boiled. As I take in bitter heat
from herbs and wild greens, sourness of lemongrass
opposed to that of tamarind, I can taste chicory my mother

taught me to grind for coffee, dandelion I picked for salad.
Tonguing young pineapple, lime vinegar, green mango
and papaya, I remember sour mash fermenting to sweetness
whiskey can bring. Understanding my hunger, a chef

in Siem Reap explains that memory of curried fish laced
with bamboo and water lilies nourishes his spirit, thought
of pork stewed in caramelized palm sugar sustains him,
but trying to regain one perfect meal, one perfect taste

he had created was as futile as trying to bring back
my parents. Still I am on edge, watch a street vendor
make a shallow incision in a mango and pull upward,
lifting rather than slicing blushing skin. Even sound

of the green peel ripping away is unsettling. To soothe
myself, I accept his offer to sample three kinds. Flesh
of the cheapest and most common is gaudy orange,
fibrous and cloyingly sweet. His mid-range mango,

the dusty orange gold of monks' robes, is also sweet,
but slivers of sour run through it, like ice. Treating
myself to his most expensive mango, I let juice drip
down my chin. Sweetness is balanced by spicy, musky,

and tart flavors. Flesh is smooth and creamy, the color
of the gold moon or forsythia my mother forced to bloom
by putting brown sugar in a vase. I had not traveled
to Cambodia for the mango season, but biting into the fruit,

I found what I was seeking—how it is bitterness which
eventually numbs the tongue and sourness which lingers
in the mouth that changes the way things taste, and how
the sweet becomes sweeter next to sorrow, next to grief.

I write poems to help my heart come to terms with what I can't understand intellectually. By creating a form in order to contain emotion I put on paper, I gain control of feelings in order to help myself heal. My poem, Mango Season in Cambodia, is about healing and how the acceptance of loss, of grief can ultimately teach us to savor life in a deeper way. I wrote this poem in order to accept the death of my mother—not a tragic one like the continued deaths of our young soldiers in Iraq—she was 89 but, none the less, her death was devastating to me. In order to control the raw grief in the poem, I utilized a metaphor with detail that appealed to me. The emotion in this poem about my mother is real, but the metaphor of a mango creates a fictional situation. I have never been to Cambodia. My hope is that in sharing my struggle to heal in this poem, I will help others find their own peace.

- Vivian Shipley

Vivian Shipley is a Connecticut State University Distinguished Professor and Editor of Connecticut Review from Southern Connecticut State University. Her seventh book, Hardboot (Southeastern Louisiana University Press, 2005) received the 2006 Paterson Prize for Sustained Literary Achievement. She was awarded Library of Congress's 2005 Connecticut Lifetime Achievement Award. Gleanings (Southeastern Louisiana University Press, 2003), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, received the 2004 Paterson Prize. When There Is No Shore (Word Press Prize, 2002) won the Library of Congress's 2003 Connecticut Book Award for Poetry. Raised in Kentucky with a PhD from Vanderbilt, she has also published five chapbooks.