Third place, poetry

They said the first woman was born from the rib of her husband.

But I don't think that's true

It is just a title born of later incarnations.

Because the first woman never married.

Because the first wife? Was not the first woman.

The body of the first woman was decaying in the Red Sea

When her successor rose from the dirt.

Her wide hips splayed out, pushed down

By the pressure of the sea.

When woman first rose higher than man, she was pushed down

Lower than the ground she grew from.

So the first wife was not born from her husband's chest.

Instead, she was born (As every woman after her)

From the fall of her mother's hips.

When man pulled woman down

He did not just pull, he flung her

He pulled out the muscle of her hand

He slung her, from her place on top of him

to the sea

And the sea, embraced her.

It pulled her farther still

And she fought.

They omit how women fight

Maybe they are hoping we will forget the option

But let it be known from the stretch of her lips

To the expanding of my lungs fighting for her air

The first woman was a fighter

She screamed against the tides

Scraped the water's edges

Its foaming, tearing waves under her fingernails

She tussled, wet, to the sea floor.

Rubbed salt into its pores,

Shot air bubbles through its depth,

And because it was bigger and stronger

The sea pinned her down.

And her spirit left her body, true

But the fight still raged:

In the set of her shoulders, the arch of her back

In the face of the pressure, the creak of her bones

And the weight of her hips

Her heels that dug into the ground.

The body of a woman is the body of a rock

Even when hollow, even when thrown so far down

Even when breached by turbulent waters

The body will not heal.

Down in the water, the first woman balanced on hands and knees,

Mouth ajar.

Shoulders arching up,

Her body frozen

In a final push towards the surface.