"Wake-up Call" by Lee Woodman

Proud cocks crow in the Caribbean morn,

muezzins call flocks to worship,

lighthouse strobes flash danger.

We sleep with our backs turned,

knees drawn up like fetal snails.

I shut my eyes till the front door closes.

Discoveries bleed through dim-lit dawn:

hidden business records, property deeds

removed, beneficiaries replaced.

Back-and-forth retorts slice like rusty razor blades. 

His clear blue eyes turn milky, my reflection

fades in a pock-marked mirror.

Sweet night connections end in crooked

sofa beds of separation. Cocks crow on,

the lark severs the throat of the nightingale.

An overseas childhood in France and India sparked Lee Woodman’s love for language, art, theater and dance.

 

Woodman is a longtime artist and media producer, whose radio and film awards include five CINEs, two NY International Film Blue Ribbons, and three Gracies from American Women in Radio and Television. She worked for 20 years in leadership roles at the Smithsonian, was Vice-President of Media and Editorial at K12, Inc., and Executive Producer at Lee Woodman Media, Inc., with clients including The Library of Congress, The World Bank, Public Radio International, NPR, and the Fulbright Program. 

 

She is the winner of the 2020 William Meredith Prize for Poetry. Her essays and poems have been published in Tiferet Journal, Zócalo Public Square, Grey Sparrow Press, The Ekphrastic Review, vox poetica, The New Guard Review, The Concord Monitor, The Hill Rag, and Naugatuck River Review. A Pushcart nominee, she received an Individual Poetry Fellowship from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities FY 2019 and FY 2020. Her poetry collection, Mindscapes, was published by Poets’ Choice Publishing on January 9, 2020, and Homescapes was published on May 22, 2020 by Finishing Line Press.