Any views expressed within media held on this service are those of the contributors, should not be taken as approved or endorsed by the University, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University in respect of any particular issue.
The University of Edinburgh's three creative writing prizes, open for 2024 submissions
 
Olivia Thomakos: What You Wish For

Olivia Thomakos: What You Wish For

Winner of the 2022 Grierson Verse Prize

Olivia Thomakos is an English teacher and poet from Ohio, USA. She is currently pursuing a Master’s in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. She is published or forthcoming in Berfrois, Dreich Magazine, Loud Coffee Press, and small leaf poetry studio among other blogs and university magazines. She is the Poetry Editor-in-Chief of the From Arthur’s Seat  anthology. Olivia writes to make sense of the world around her.

Connect with Olivia
LinkedIn: oliviathomakos
Instagram: @livoutloud__

 

Olivia Says:I chose to write a sestina for the prompt of fragility because the structure itself is fragile. Sestinas require balanced repetition, narrative clarity, and length control to flow while obeying word repetition order. Marriage parallels this fragile structure in how it also requires repetition, clarity, and control to be successful. There are moments of structural fragmentation when the repeated words are twisted, which happens most noticeably at the end of the poem to mimic the structural breakdown of the couple’s marriage. 

What You Wish For

Constantly pestered for coconut pancakes, 

Spencer threw together breakfast blizzards 

coated in white shavings and ice cream. Winter 

weekends left his boys sheltering 

from their cold father who forced prayer, whispered 

before they stuffed their bellies. Legs aching 

 

from growth spurts, the boys ached 

for their mother, Lina, the Saturday pancake 

designer. A Dairy Queen fiend, she first whispered 

I love you to Spencer over a Mint Blizzard. 

The sweethearts had married on a sweltering 

spring day. Autumn stomach scooping into winter, 

 

Lina cradled three hungry boys. By wintery 

cribs, white-curtained, her rocking chair ached 

under thick blankets while Spencer sheltered 

in chilly silence. The truth was he hated pancakes 

and children. When the three blizzard 

babies were announced, his whispered 

 

Jesus Christ was mistaken for prayer. He whispered 

swears at every “Triplets!” and This winter? 

Some honeymoon!” When “strong swimmers” blitzed 

into their conversations, he ached 

for an escape, but Lina pleaded “Pancakes!” 

Ignoring the battle flipping in his head, she’d heard 

 

husbands take time, that newborns sheltered 

in his arms would make him stay. She whispered 

I love you to the boys, requested more pancakes. 

Insatiable, they screamed for Spencer’s bottles all winter 

while Lina moaned that her breasts ached. 

Her first drive alone in months was into the blizzard 

 

that crashed through February. Blessing her 

luck at an early escape from sheltered 

bed rest, Spencer packed, knees aching 

from suitcases hauled down the stairs. A whisper 

of doubt stopped him at the door. Winter’s  

blur clouded every window; Lina’s pancakes 

 

cold on the counter. He reached for the knob as the blizzard 

pushed an officer up the porch. Car pancaked in the shelter 

of a bridge, his wish granted: a life without her. 

 

 

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

css.php

Report this page

To report inappropriate content on this page, please use the form below. Upon receiving your report, we will be in touch as per the Take Down Policy of the service.

Please note that personal data collected through this form is used and stored for the purposes of processing this report and communication with you.

If you are unable to report a concern about content via this form please contact the Service Owner.

Please enter an email address you wish to be contacted on. Please describe the unacceptable content in sufficient detail to allow us to locate it, and why you consider it to be unacceptable.
By submitting this report, you accept that it is accurate and that fraudulent or nuisance complaints may result in action by the University.

  Cancel