Glass Slippered.

Clear glass, blown and 

collected from sand she found between

the wedges in her bikini,

Mister Charming and the champagne fountain.

So many moth-eaten holes in that night,

so many little rips and tears in that thrift shop dress.

Oceanside property, he had told her, with his parents gone

on a week-long trip to Oslo, and his bitch sister

finishing her sentence for possession, the place was all his.

Halloween, the ripest time, the plumpest evening.

The air is cold and pregnant with winter weather,

shivering in her princess costume.

She told him her name was Cynthia,

and he told her to call him 'daddy'.

Wasn't dancing in the moonlight enough?

To be fanciful and fancied--fancy that. 

"Um, I gotta be gone by midnight, I think, 

I got a term paper due soon." Bitten lip.

"Sure, baby." He presses a hot hand into

the small of her back and she feels a wormy excitement.

Quiet little sips from the cup he offers.

Those grinning Jack-O-Lanterns, drunk girls 

dressed as slutty mice, raising toasts to the host,

Mister Charming. Hand on her leg, fog in her mind.

She woke up with one shoe and bogged with beach.

Dizzied and frenzied, she sweats over the torch,

molten diamond and fiery bubbles forming

beneath her hand. Clear shoes, clear shoes,

no dark and enveloping ocean to meander

down to, no wealthy frat-boy pushing her into the sand.

Thorns and tangled thong, a blurry panting and

a vague panic, hearing laughter in the distance but 

unable to reach or cry out--spinning, spinning,

retching as something reaches down her throat and

pulls out her essence--she's dying that night.

"Holy fuck! Prince! Cops!" a fraternity brother cries,

and blue lights and white lights and black ocean

tumble into broken darkness.

Cynthia steps into her clear, hot slipper, shattering it.