lotus shoes

Nainai tied
her feet
in sheepskin

magnetized
the iron
in her blood

to dance
the carols
of slaves;

each step
bloomed
a lotus

lathered
in gauze, fitting
His palm;

her virgin sole:
emblem of beauty
guised in pain

consummated
tradition
to survive;

‘kàn’—look
her whispers
brush my ear

lotus shoes
slip off
her ankles

misshapen toes
clinking
on birch sand

‘fēi ba’
be chained
nevermore.

By Christina Peng

Biography:

Christina is a seventeen-year-old writer from California. A mother of two books—Pimples of Promise and Wing and Minna—she went door-to-door in a green elf costume to sell her book, raising $1000 for the Million Book Project. Her writing has received a National Silver Medal and three Gold Keys from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.