Here is what final judge Deshawn McKinney wrote about "Gills, 1992":

"I am most fascinated by the way this poem stretches itself into the company of biblical and social allegory. The explicit reference to Jonah and the whale does this most poignantly, but by distancing Minty from the hot-blooded vengeance wished upon Nineveh; she seeks peace from rather than any act done upon those who are 'enemy.' In this way, the poem mimics the empathic nature of its subjects.

There is, too, something intriguing about the idea of coexistence that the relationship between Minty and Leroy sparks. For being swallowed is not an act of anger or even hunger, it is a prayer answered, "just the right orison." In this subtle way we are nudged to challenge our beliefs about the natural pecking order and our march toward technological progress, a modern world ever distant from the soil and animals that make it possible. What have they to teach us about compassion? What have we to learn about coming together, of survival as a cohabitation?

And yet, this is not a poem about survival so much as it is about finding peace in waiting to die, in choosing. It is in this waiting, inside the belly, that the poem's setting truly shines. Minty relaxing on a bladder like a "warm waterbed" and working to untangle fishing line, care for the young, and live in her new home, is a beautiful sorrow. Being pushed from her world but finding comfort and peace still. This contortion of isolation and death as a quiet, peaceful act is both beautiful and haunting."

Sal Ragen lives in Central Arkansas with her family of cats and dogs and her partner. She is at work on a novel.