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.