This month Women Writing for (a) Change-Bloomington poets are participating in National Poetry Writing Month. Every day we will offer up a new poem by a writer in our community. Check back after 6:00pm for the Prompt of the Day and the selected resulting poem.
Today, I’d like you to challenge you to write a poem that similarly presents a scene from an unusual point of view. Perhaps you could write a poem that presents Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery from the perspective of the apple. Or the shootout at the OK Corral from the viewpoint of a passing vulture. Or maybe it could be something as everyday as a rainstorm, as experienced by a raindrop.
#17 The truth about glass shoes by Amy Cornell
I know, fairy godmother calls them slippers,
as if that mitigates their heaviness
and the awfulness of being seen-through.
High heels meant for dancing that are clear and clean, so
everyone can see my bunions and my callouses.
All that soot! Fairy magic didn’t come with a bath.
Feet ain’t pretty and that’s a fact.
And whoever thought of glass as a material
for a shoe certainly wasn’t thinking very
pragmatically. That shit is going to
break and not at a convenient time either.
I’ll hear a subtle crack, and those little tiny
splinters of glass are going to embed right in
in my arch, in the tiny pads, in between
my toes. Damn. I hurt just imagining it.
Fairy godmother was thinking
I know, let’s make the feet sparkle, dazzle,
that will surely get their attention, but they
are heavy as fuck, pardon my language.
Weighing us down. She and I.
We were looking forward to running and breathing
and here we are, pinned to the ballroom floor.
They might as well be lead.
Legend will have it that they dance as if in the clouds.
Forgetting time and falling in love.
And I will wish it were true, that he won’t step
heavily on me during the waltz at midnight.
Then suddenly: the crack of glass, the midnight chime,
my cinder girls delicate “oh shit”,
and the chaos of the horses outside
turning back to mice.
There is a minute there, when she races up the stairs
and out of the ballroom, when she loses the slipper
and runs all lopsided back for home any way she
can make it, there is a minute there,
when I am the light. I am what carries her home.
I wish it weren’t so hard for her to understand
when the prince comes calling with that
damn broken shoe.