Second Place Poetry, Tina Fowler

Disruption of Order
(A Photograph)

Wearing a conical headdress of
royalty (party hat sister saved
from a birthday) atop a silken veil
of gossamer glory (table cloth
robbed from the kitchen)
and a gown of finest blue velvet
(daddy’s bandanna rolled into
the elastic of my underwear) –
my hands wring worried as
I squint into the bright sun
of South Carolina coastal land.
A flat, cloudless backdrop of
cookie cutter housing
for enlisted brass
stands in formation
on arrow straight roads.
Military preciseness in
the length of the grass,
white of the buildings,
bushes pruned parabolic,
even the palm tree
seems to stand at attention.
The clothes hung on the line to dry
behind one of the houses
doesn’t disrupt the order,
stung straight in selected size .
I am the disruption.
A self-made four year old
princess of pilferage
marooned on a military base.