The fifth Moon Prize* goes to Gloria Mindock's poem "Waiting"—backdating to the full moon of January 12, 2017. Congratulations on a poem that packs a complicated universe into a handful of words, Gloria Mindock.

Waiting

by Gloria Mindock

Waiting for an angel to circle, drop

threads on our faces, we cover our eyes

in this system of the obsolete.

After awhile, we are meek in our armchair

watching TV…

feeling lazy, thinking, we have time.

Gather yourself.

The bullets fly on this hot summer day

into your skin.

* * * * *

The Moon Prize ($91) is awarded once a month on the full moon for a story or poem posted in Writing In A Woman's Voice during the moon cycle period preceding the full moon. I don't really want this to be competition. I simply want to share your voices. And then I want to pick one voice during a moon cycle for the prize. I fund this with 10% of my personal modest income. I wish I could pay for each and every poem or story, but I am not that rich. (Yet?) For a little while only there will be two awards each month, on the day of the full moon and the day after, until I catch up with past postings.

Why 91? 91 is a mystical number for me. It is 7 times 13. 13 is my favorite number. (7 isn't half bad either.) There are 13 moons in a year. I call 13 my feminist number, reasoning that anything that was declared unlucky in a patriarchal world has to be mysteriously excellent. Then there are 4 times 91 days in a year (plus one day, or two days in leap years), so approximately 91 days each season. In some Mayan temples there are or were 91 steps on each of four sides. Anyway, that's where the number 91 comes from, not to mention that it's in the approximate neighborhood of 100.