Cinderella

On the night of the grand ball

she in white, the prince in blue and gold

floating two inches above the floor

while her sisters, breathing their oatmeal breath

watch through keyhole eyes

their neck veins throbbing jealous blood.

But when the big bell bongs its twelve

the coach becomes a pumpkin and the coachmen mice.

Her sequined gown regains its tatters

and morning becomes a memory of magic gone.

And the young prince who has been

so trim in his britches, belt and buckler,

so shining in his epaulets and his smile

lopes through his palace halls

reverting to the paunch of his life

a cigar grafted to his lips

flesh slipping from the pinions of his face

and one glass slipper in his hand.

As always, save for that one enchanted night,

he bumbles through his life

sends his idiot soldiers out to find

the foot that fits the salvaged slipper.

But it's someone else's foot they force into the shoe,

some hard-mouthed woman destined for cronedom

whom he marries with pageantry and pomp

making her princess of his ridiculous gingerbread land

while Cinderella's sisters, eating their fish heads,

drinking their duck's blood soup

watch from their voyeur window saying, "Hah!"

But Cinderella, the Disney sparkle of her dreamy eyes

wasted on mops and brooms,

sits impassive, hunched against the sky

while evening shadows carve her face-

deep here . . . shallow there. . .

brooding through the clouds just as she'd stared

deep at the fire on all those infinite nights

waiting for the time when some village boy

would whisk her from one batch of cinders to the next.