Poetry. Winner of the 2018 Washington Prize. Lift the lid on Nils Michals' GEMBOX and discover inside vast, sometimes terrifying, worlds. Here are half-finished skyscrapers, waves 'loaded with the silhouettes of sharks, ' a petrified forest, and 'matterhorns of sky blue frosting.' Here is the buzzing of human activity, as if seen from high above. And here are more magical boxes, some made of ticky-tacky, others lavishly, lovingly carved, each a portal to new understanding. Michals writes with grace, wit, and the kind of eye that discovers in the everyday the marvels of a world we half recognize set against the echoes of our own mortality.--Kevin Prufe