N30B Winners

Rob Shapiro won Third Place in the 2020 Narrative 30 Below Contest. Originally from Massachusetts, he received an undergraduate degree from Elon University and an MFA from the University of Virginia. He lives in New York City.


THIRD PLACE WINNER


Seasonal Diptych

by Rob Shapiro


Solstice, End of Day

I’ve tried to forgive the vacant sky
its fleeting glint—

tried and failed
to accept another season


of garden-rot, silvered
bouquets of frost-stunned weeds.


Too stubborn, I think,
to name this fault.


Too desperate: sick to death
of heavy boots and sleet-faded streets,


how the sun falls back
through its trapdoor


and vanishes like
the men in my family


who’ve died or disappeared.
It’s winter and what more


can be said of absence?
Afternoons, I find them


waiting in mirrors until
their faces give way


to mine: dumb trick
I fall for in half-hearted light


which dovetails
cloud-break and canopy,


little black stream—
how shadow gives way


to shadow, each darkness
fleeing its source.


November Spell I

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