Little Cinder

by Jeannine Hall Gailey

Girl, they can't understand you.

You rise from the ash–heap in a blaze

and only then do they recognize you

as their one true love.

While you pray beneath your mother's

tree you carve a phoenix into your palm

with a hazel twig and coal;

every night she devours more of you.

You used to believe in angels.

Now you believe in the makeover;

if you can't get the grime off your face

and your foot into a size six heel

who will ever bother to notice you?

The kettle and the broom sear in your grasp,

snap into fragments. The turtledoves sing,

"There's blood within the shoe."

You deserve the palace, you think, as you signal

the pigeons to attack, approve the barrel filled

with red–hot nails. The great hearth beckons,

and the prince's flag rises crimson as the angry sun.

He will love you for the heat you generate,

for the flames you ignite around you,

though he encase your tiny feet in glass

to keep them from scorching the ground.