Red-Hot Shoes

[intheheart]

Title: Red-Hot Shoes
Rating: PG.
Summary: What do wicked mothers get?
Warnings: blink-and-miss-it implications of child abuse and child abandonment, fairy-tale violence.
Notes: poetryyyyy. You missed it. None of these views are the author's.



The wicked stepmother dances in red-hot iron shoes
dances herself to death with burning hair
and a shrieking smile
but what do they give wicked mothers?
Nothing
not even the whisper of an eyelash.
Wicked mothers punish themselves.

The dog loves her, at least.
He is bigger than her heart
and her two fists put together
bigger than her children
when they were small.
He puts his large head on her knee
and looks at her with melting eyes
and she feeds him and
he loves her
just like that.

Of course she is not his mother.

She is not their mother either.
They have found new homes
new parents
new families
like her husband did so long ago.
She lost them herself.
She has no one else to blame.

Rebecca walks her dog in the mornings
dancing herself to death
in sensible shoes.