ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Petra Vanhout, an artist from Belgium, began drawing three years ago during a challenging period in her life. Through drawing, she finds relaxation and clarity, which provide her with satisfaction and perseverance. Each piece she creates contributes to her personal growth and artistic improvement, making her art a journey of self-discovery and betterment.

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And the winner is…

Jay McKenzie

THE AWEIGH HYMN

This is not a story about boys ripped apart. It is not a story of how a Daddy took one boy and left the other behind. Not a tale of a Daddy so embittered that he kept his sons apart to punish his wife,  himself. This is not that story. 

It is a story about boys in the country playing in the rusted graveyard of broken machinery. It is a story of bellies filled with pie, of cheeks peppered with cider-brown freckles, of a Daddy that sings Highwayman loud and out of tune. 

It is not a parable about playing with fire. There’s no dried hay in the barn, no homespun magnifying glasses made from the thick bottoms of a smashed milk bottle. One boy didn’t smell smoke, didn't yell to the other to get out while he flapped the old horse blanket over the smoulder. 

It is a story about boys who lie under blanket forts trying to listen but not wanting to hear the bile on Daddy’s lips, to Mama’s tears. It is about two boys who want the world to stop turning long enough for them to get to the song part about flying the starship, crossing the divide in the universe, and it’s a story of never getting past the second verse where the sailor took his schooner to Mexico. It’s a boy turning to another, saying let’s sail to Mexico. 

This is not a story about a protracted illness. No fever raged through a boy, no cancerous growths strangled his liver. There wasn’t a hospital bed or a nurse in a cap. No doctors with clever eyes and pens tucked into breast pockets took his temperature or said say aahhhh. Nobody whispered in hallways while one boy held another’s hand and said will you come back to me? A boy did not pause after taking a deep breath and never let it out again.

This is a story about brothers who slip apples from the pantry while their parents fight in the yard, hunker down in the old Chevy truck until nightfall. It’s about brothers who spout confessionals using only eyebrows, who don’t need words but who sing all the verses of Highwayman with juice leaking down their chins, spitting Stayman shards into the glovebox. It is a story where one brother tugs the arm of the other who is tumbling over the edge of sleep, sings so lightly in his ear that the brother later questions whether he heard it at all. That the lines are from the song where a transmigratory robber promises to return again, again, again. 

This could be another story: one where two boys grow up, find wives and laugh together over a beer.  Or another, where a boy lets a drop of rain fall without wondering if this is what his brother has become. But this is not that story. This story is printed on the side of a milk carton: a megawatt grin, MISSING stamped beneath.