Welcome Home, Winner
I arrive at every door,
shirt untucked, one pocket
reversed and you can see
the emptiness there, the grit
along the liner. I know
the plainness of it,
the canvas marked with
kindergarten lines, people
with no faces, just dots
for eyes and branches for
arms and hands. I know
the spaces where trophies
don’t stand, dust settling
on brass shoulders, the
rejection emails sent in
droves by some robot
who’s even won more
than me, the callouses
on my palms from trying—
yes, Yoda, there is try—
the tattered dishrag worn
from messes and their
incessant incarnates,
the tears that drag me
to the floor, the standing
back up. This is me: this
battered, this determined
to not bleed into the doormat.
Welcome the winning at
nothing, shame like some
lifelong fart that follows
me into every room.
Welcome home, loser—
wait, don’t say that—
welcome home, winner.
Balls topple onto my
head when I open
the closet door.
Lane Falcon’s poems from have been published in American Poetry Journal, The Cream City Review, Harbor Review, The Healing Muse, The Journal, New York Quarterly, Poet Lore, Poetry South, Presence, Rust & Moth, and more. Her first manuscript, Deep, Blue Odds, was selected as a finalist for the 2022 and 2023 Black Lawrence Press Hudson Prize, as well as a semi-finalist for the 2022 Tupelo Press Berkshire Prize. It will be published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions early 2026.
