Pam Wynn          Seizure, Petit Mal Third Prize 2002 Poetry Contest                Here silence stands...             ... untalkative, out of reach                                   From Here by Philip Larkin   A girl stands in the cafeteria line, as still as the flag pole on the building's lawn. She returns from a distant place. The cashier sees only that she is holding up the long line.   Her absence is measured in seconds, or half-seconds, between the last word and the next word that she hears.   It's not a bad place, a blank screen, a vacant space without color.   To the early Greeks such visitations were a gift from the gods. Van Gogh had fits. And some say Moses had seizures too.   But if this girl has climbed Mount Olympus, talked to burning fire or sunflowers   she returns with nothing to report.