--Larissa Gula, Grade 12

I once picked up a violin
With a flimsy, cracking bow,
And I softly coaxed a tune, until
I recognized the whistle being thrown out.

It sounded like my old machine companions
With creaking pistons, and gears,
And proud smokestacks marking the trail taken
Until the message was lost in the clouds.

It sounded like the night
When I rode along to the next station
Watching fields of barley
And snail-ridden marshes
Flash by.

And the midnight train, with no destination,
Carried me on, on, on
And away from the demands
And requirements.
My only companion was peace.

And we bumped along, the motions
Soothing cracked fingers, and beyond them
Into a weary nack, nudging,
Opening constricted capillaries--

Until the whistle suddenly screamed
And pierced the quartet circle
And my eyes snapped open
With the dream echoing,

Echoing...

      Echoing...

Leaving me
Nowhere appreciated.

This is the fifth runner-up in READ magazine's 2008 Ann Arlys Bowler Poetry Contest. Check back every day through May 1 to see 14 fabulous student poems. Did you enter? One of them could be yours!