4th Prize – Roger Elkin with:

Pencil drawing of a girl, circa 1912, partially erased

“The beauty of the seemingly insignificant” Noel Connor

Who knows its significance,
the hidden beauty of this pencil sketch
that catches the glimmer of a likeness –

the cross-hatching, blocking-in
and shading of her eyes, those
lips, that hair – but didn’t quite

satisfy, so has been rubbed out
to smudged summer clouds
dulling the sky’s blank page.

Rather than the captured
factualities, it is the erasure’s
what-might-have-beens

that admit appearances.
But then, how readily
We grow dispirited; give up;

so try to erase what others
might deem our failures.
And how we mythologize

in recreating the past. Hers. Ours.
How we draw to cover the tracks.
And rub. Rub.