Finalist: Suzie Eckl
"The dead letter office”

Dear Santa. Dear Easter Bunny. Dear Tooth Fairy Who Never Left Enough. Dear Tasmanian Tiger. Dear Dodo Bird. Dear Last Male White Rhino. Dear All Animals Euthanized at the Pound. Dear Baby Birds, Struck Dead from the Fall When We Hired Men to Trim the Trees. Dear Trees that Got Too Big Along the Fence Line. Dear Save-the-Rainforest Fund. Dear Backpack with the Frayed Strap. Dear Retainer I Threw Away On My Lunch Tray.

Finalist: Mark wagenaar
"elegy"

Because there’s nothing else to be done about a beached fifty-ton body.

Because our imagination failed us, as our language does.

Because the mayor asked you with a grin what do you charge for a charge?

Because he then asked what do you imagine when you set the charges, and you answered grasshopper leaving the window of a blueprint.