Defying Gravity

They flocked to her in droves

“Cinderella,” they called.

Their ardor, canned heat.

“Give us a glance

from your golden drapes.

Come, be our Poppy Girl.

Let’s worship the comet sky.

Look there, the stars shine

on the tips of your glass slippers.”

Ah, so many Cinderella

men of sparks and air

chanting coy promises

catching stardust on their fingers.

And again, they came

through the fruit orchards

of hobgoblins,

“Rapunzerella, let down your

golden hair.”

Cinderella, that confused enchanted girl

twirled her golden strands

shined her glass slippers

then spun the wheel of fate and fantasy

for coy boys

into the brittle, golden hours

days running long into the night.

Jagged stars, see how they shine?

Men of airy promises

poured through the atmosphere

like toxic rain.

Castle walls soon become crypts

of truth.

Mazes of the millennium close.

Plath whispers from

the silvery, sorrowful distance

and Cinderella heeds…