Congratulations to Gary V. Powell, first-place winner in the Non-Rhyming Poetry category of the 94^th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. Here’s his winning poem, “Wiffle Ball.”

(See the winning entry list here.)

After standing all day
in restaurants and retail stores,
after swinging limb to limb
and trimming trees with chainsaws
that could as easily take a man’s face
as a branch imperiling a building’s roof,
after carving beef quarters
into steaks and chops
with knives sharp enough
to sever arteries and fingers,
after assembling recreational vehicles
using drills, routers, and table saws
that made no distinction between
an arm and a two-by-two rail,
the men of Treasure Island Village
read the paper, watched the news
and ate dinner with their wives
before stepping out of their
aluminum-sided subdivision homes
and carrying their Millers and Buds
into streets and cul-de-sacs
where they played with their boys
in the pink light of summer evenings,
reclaiming for a little while
the weightless days of their youth,
unburdened by mouths to feed,
mortgages and car payments,
and the fear of losing the jobs
that ground them down
like a blade against a wheel,
throwing and batting and catching
and laughing into the gathering darkness
until all that remained of the light
was a wall of fireflies flashing
in an adjacent empty lot.

Get recognized for your writing. Find out more about the Writer's Digest family of writing competitions.