Franke Varca, First Place winner of Narrative’s Seventeenth Annual Poetry Contest, earned an MFA in poetry from the Helen Zell Writer’s Program at the University of Michigan. He is the recipient of two Academy of American Poets prizes and a 2012 Discovery Poetry Prize.

The Bottom Becomes the Top

by Franke Varca

In place of this year’s April, I’m throwing out
last April’s bony shrug that kept you.

Kept you like days’ long rain
plinking on metal rooftops, filling
clay pots where something should have been growing.
This is a premium subscription story. Please make a $4 donation to access the individual story or a $60 donation to access all the stories in Narrative Backstage for a period of one year.

If you are already a user, but not yet logged in, you may login here.
If you are new to Narrative, signing up is FREE and easy.