1st Place Winner of the Winter Poetry Contest: ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF SEDITION - Amy Speace

I drive my son to 

daycare listening to the commentators 

on the commission and censure, 

interviewing senators who stitch 

language like crosshatch on 

motel wall décor.

Across the street, the neighbors 

keep up their election signs 

like an argument. I can see from here 

they have two front doors, side 

by side. One is white, like every other 

front door on the block, a knocker, a peering 

window; the other, an irrational 

open space, a beggarly blue tarp, 

casually tacked up at the top but left to 

flap the bottom. They staked the oversized 

blue flag yesterday, again, 

in case we missed the semaphore.

I’d like to think 

behind that tarp is a space 

heater for the linoleum foyer, 

cat piss, sweat of a life 

held together by spit and prayer, 

not enough to fix the door 

but enough to get them through 

the winter. They’ll hold out long enough 

to sell in the high market, roll west 

to where they can rest away from 

the neighborhood carpetbaggers who stole 

their voices and who’d have, eventually, 

come for their guns. I’ve settled 

across the street from the stillness 

still wondering who will be held

to the windblown weather

now that all is undone.

But the neighborhood hawk, 

who has always been here, 

stretches a shadow 

over the snow like she knows 

the end of the story. 

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Amy Speace is an award-winning singer-songwriter and writer based in Nashville, TN. In 2020, her song “Me and the Ghost of Charlemagne” was named “International Song of the Year” by the Americana Music Association in London. Her essays have been published by The New York Times, Salon.com, No Depression, Working Mother, The Guardian and American Songwriter. Her forthcoming debut collection of poetry, The Cardinals, will be published by Red Hen Press in Spring 2027. program. Her poetry has been published by 2River Review and Euonia. For her memoir, Menopausal Mommy, she is represented by Jen Newens at Martin Literary Agency. She received her MFA from Spalding University in June 2025.