The Cinderellas

A truth is not a truism; between us

It could be the sweetest of lies

Whose wine-laced tongue will

Divorce or devour.

This one last night, the shoe

Will tip safely skyward the lesser lie

But also cut another's foot, sink that girl

Towards that one, ineluctable madness

Rocks aside, we have walked too long

And too far arm-in-arm to not offer

A mute smile, if not the hands that have

Come to belong to one anotherCinderella, it was you who

Scorned the ones who claimed

"Two girls can never amount to more than foes"

(I was ever quietly confused)

And when we told each other everything

We shared nothing, and soon fell into the trap

Of pawning the others' noughts

For simpler pleasuresThis one last night, you have no more to say

But Cinderella, if my skin cracks and my hands melt

Let me find a home in your

Pale and lovely eyes

I know this too, that if I am the one left

Spread-eagled upon the floor, in my repose

The Truth will find me like a guiding flock of stars

To lead my black heart to the coldest door

While you, my dear

Will lie upon your silver throne

So utterly, utterly alone.

Mummies

Do they see me when I

Catch them through my

Timid eyelids?

Their little fists, four ash roses,

Clench and condemn the mockery

Of a final sleep now broken

Their bruised ribs ache to split

And spill a sob or a breath;

But their lungs were hollowed out

Quietly beside the shining Nile

Two thousand years ago, yet the sobs

Of their cracked mouths still resound

Disembodied in the winds of Egypt

While the two princes hang

Dumb and battered in their glass jail

What was death to them?

I was thrice their age

And fathomed less

I felt my small heart sink

And my mouth fill with the stench

Of their parched flesh

Crushing my eyes, I prayed that

Mum would hurry along;

I was only eight

And the museum felt

Like an awful grave, and death to me

Was still something vague.