a street dog
licks the winter moon
First Honorable Mention, Anita Sadler Weiss Memorial Haiku Awards (2011); forthcoming in The Dragonfly
Judge’s Comment: This haiku meets what I call the mirror test. Hold this poem up to an imaginary mirror. The images are clear and compact. Moreover, the poet takes up the challenge of employing a traditional haiku image, the moon reflected in a smaller image of water, and makes it new. No easy task. In three short lines the haiku offers the reader a slice of squalor touched by beauty.
