as it formed one sole than
the other. I waited barefoot,
Cinderella for a podiatry prince

When a nurse with hair as
gray as mine removed them,
I asked if some soles stuck—
she said once the doctor had to pry

My plaster supports drying
on a rack, I left basking in
the prince’s words:
“They’re the highest I’ve ever seen”

Previously published in Skyline Review.

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Carol Smallwood co-edited Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching (McFarland, 2012); Women Writing on Family (Key Publishing House, 2012) and Compartments (Anaphora Literary Press, 2011). Carol’s “The Dish With Watermelon Rind” is also in Reprint.

Object(s) to bring back to life: “The emerald green of spring grass after a long rain, that green that only comes once a year that is so emerald it hurts the eyes, evokes other springs like nothing else, leaving you suspended.”