One stood alone,
three beside the oak tree.
A few dotted
turquoise pastures,
fields, a dozen scattered
around hairpin
curves to the college campus.
At three, mother wraps cloth around
my feet. Every day she binds them
tighter to shape my future,
her love bending toes to curl
like lotus leaves,
the small pointed ones
of a graceful dancer charming
princes of China centuries ago.
I won 3rd Prize in the 2005 William Redding Memorial Poetry Competition for the Poetry Forum at Larry’s. In the 2005 & 2006 Ohio Poetry Day Contests, I won first prize, third prize, and three honorable mentions. I won the 1998 Janet Cicchetti Memorial Prize published in the Poetry Society of South Carolina Yearbook. Poems were published in The Bitter Oleander, Möbius, The Raintown Review, HazMat Review, Quattrocento and 21 other publications.