When Limitation Yields Abundance

When I think about having it all,

I think of my big sister planting a fig tree

in her garden.

I see her there, in my head—

knees in the dirt,

hair tracing her face in arched streams

like a water sprinkler,

hands patting the soil

while Poppy, her pup,

digs chaos in the mud.

I remember her saying, ‘To make it bloom,

you must keep its roots in check,

press them into the curve of a pot.’

Unfettered, the tree will squander itself on leaves,

wood reaching farther

than sweetness can follow—

but hemmed in, it will turn

its hunger into figs,

each one heavy with the sugar

that only restraint can yield.

This poem won third place in the Kingfisher Poetry Prize 2025.