Rebecca Faulkner is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2025 Poetry Contest
Photo by Arwan Sutanto on Unsplash.
Father’s Day
Mum says I have a new family now,
matter-of-fact with the tea brewing.
A half-sister who rides her shiny bike
without training wheels, plush carpet
hugs her staircase. Suppers in the car
nights he drives me home, fish & chips
steam the windows. My eyes vinegar-itch
but I will not cry. Weekends he fails to fix
the bird-feeder, spilling seed in my sandals
while I jostle sparrows for crumbs.
When he’s back I’ll make him read
Charlotte’s Web, work busily like a spider
weaving webs to hold him tight. Until then,
I seek solace in the shed with sharp objects
trace chalk outlines where his body was.
Our runner beans are planted for spring
scarlet & bruised in their solitary pots. Wait
for shoots to sprout, picking last week’s scabs
lick the gash, so what if it never heals?
Rebecca Faulkner is a London-born poet based in Brooklyn. The author of Permit Me to Write My Own Ending, (Write Bloody Publishing, 2023) which was a finalist for the 2024 Sheila Margaret Motton Book Prize, her work appears in The Maine Review, The Poetry Society of New York, CALYX Press, and elsewhere. She was a 2023 poetry recipient of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, the winner of Black Fox Literary Magazine’s 2023 Writing Contest, and the 2022 winner of Sand Hills Literary Magazine’s National Poetry Contest. She holds a BA in English Literature & Theatre Studies from the University of Leeds, an MA in Performance Studies from NYU, and a Ph.D. from the University of London. Her new collection, Daughters of the Minotaur, engages with the life and work of five mid-century women artists, and was the winner of the 2025 Terry J. Cox Poetry Prize. It is forthcoming in 2027 from Regal House Publishing. Find more about her at www.rebeccafaulknerpoet.com.
