look th’ innocent flower

it all flickers with the flash of a blade and

the flip of a golden tail as it slips beneath a pool-full of 

rust. it is there one moment, with an air of translucency. 

people soil easily, you know, with the help of a rolled 

cigarette between their lips and ink sunk deep within

their skin. i was one of those people until i looked

into the fingerprint-stained window of a Fieline's 

at the corner of Dillard's and Macabee's and saw 

a plain red dress with no shape or body. 

surely i could dress it up. i bought it,  along with

a few red ribbons to tie back my insolent curls with.

i took my face from the jar at the door and polished it

so it gleamed like candied wax. i passed the radioheads 

and the hobos with a new sense of worth, and meaning. 

the corporate ladder would be mine, i thought as i looked

down at my satin blue kitten heels that hid the run at the

toes of my stockings. 

look th' innocent flower, but be the serpent under't.

i walked inside and became a crepe paper woman 

with only a flickering scale of rebellion that was left 

to shrivel to nothing, like a meandering scab upon a child's 

pinkened knee, 

it was then that i learned, i was a serpent, a

serpent that would be crushed beneath the 

boot-heel of misinterpreted lines from Macbeth.