so very fairy tale
by Hillary Lyon


a glass coffin or slipper
cracks beneath the reality
of sex and death
and make up

pull on instead
those red leather boots
pull down the covers
of that pillow-top bed

the eye-lashes curl
and the hair falls a curtain
over otherwise obvious
intentions

open the gilt-edged book
and with a mouth shaped not
like a cupid's bow
but rather

the smoothly chill lips
of a shot glass
read him the riot act
show him the diagram

of the escape route
especially the one
with the long hair
woven into a ladder






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