Fatma Omar (above) wins a 2024 Zócalo Poetry Prize honorable mention award for "Fire Ants." Courtesy of Fatma Omar.
Every year, we award the annual Zócalo Poetry Prize to the poem that best evokes a connection to place. Zócalo is pleased to recognize four honorable mention submissions for 2024.
The turmeric colored wall suffers
Sand streaks from a harsh wind
That whipped minuscule pebbles
At little red ants crawling on its side.
One bright one with a bulb on its
Back inched towards my arm.
The bite shot a stinging heat
Up my arm. Inside, grandma
Smiled knowingly at my pain
Stricken face. A sugar salve and cool
Towel eased the pain. I looked
For ointment, but she laughed.
This is Sudan, we use what we have.
Sensing a long story, I pulled
A chair onto the sand-ridden yard.
Strangely, the bite had numbed
To a memory. Kids swim in dirty streams
And survive malaria all the time. She stared – can you?
But she went back to peeling onions,
Scattering skin the ants would soon devour.