Poetry Contest Winner, Honorable Mention, Spring/Summer 2026

Deborah Doolittle

Eponymous

Unscrambled spells mouse pony.
Mouse-colored, not black or gray

or roan or dun or bay in any
equine kind of way. More ecru,

more taupe, more mauve, more honey
suckled sort of a coat.   Barrel chested,

shaggy maned, and swaggy tailed.
Two pointy ears that swivel like a bunny’s.

It stands well under the standard limit
of 14 hands.  So unlike the rhyming

Hippopotamus that there’s no contest.
Now I never thought I’d be that

birthday girl suddenly in a room full
of manure, shoveling, shoveling,

digging for the pony hidden there
as I’ve uncovered in this word.