Second Place: Playground Science by Andrew Jarvis

A colony under convex, it caves

in relentless sun, intolerable

cruelty, magnified, kinetic.

For a boy in scientific body,

an optical engineer, he studies

electromagnetic radiation

in his execution experiment.

Ants become illicit in yellow heat,

cremating their black away, spotlighted.

Pensive, he pauses, wondering why light

can be so hostile, yet wonderful

in burning, ionic enlightenment.

About the Author

Andrew Jarvis is the author of Landslide, Blood Moon, and Sojourners. His poems have appeared in Cottonwood, Measure, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and several others. He holds high honors from the Nautilus, INDIE Book of the Year, and NextGen Indie Book Awards. Andrew is a naturalist and draws inspiration from natural, cultural, and anthropological history. He holds an M.A. in Writing from Johns Hopkins University and has been writing poetry for more than 20 years. Andrew lives near a lake in Orlando where alligators invade his backyard.