Prince Charming, Etc.

As promised, I am posting the poem I based upon the photo prompt featured in yesterday's blog post.

Prince Charming, Etc.

Someday I want to read Cinderella’s story –

Not the fairy tale –

I mean her story.

How would she tell it?

Or how would Beatrice tell

Of Florentine nights

When the city’s finest

Gathered in grand ceremony?

When she appeared

Just long enough

To capture a poet’s heart

On her way to becoming a goddess,

What did she see?

And what about that dancing queen

Who took to the dance floor

When the lights were low

On a Friday night?

What would be her story

Should her lips tell the tale

Or her pen fashion the narrative?

I can only speak

For the hopes of a man

Made helpless by the sight

Of that fair maiden of story and song.

When beauty walks a razors edge

In stiletto heels,

A man can suddenly imagine

A lifetime

In the span of a heartbeat

Or the blink of an eye.

That imagined lifetime

Will prod him to cancel

All previously scheduled tomorrows

To follow that one bright star.

When daybreak comes

And bleary eyes survey the gray-cast city

That now holds only a fragment of that dream,

He joins the ranks of troubadours

And would-be Prince Charmings.

With a single shoe

To remind him

Of life lived to the full –

That shoe left in haste

By the curb

Before the lady’s departure –

He is ready to search the kingdom

To find the lady

Who will fit that shoe

And fill his dreams.

Some of us

Caught up in that drama

Will bring her home,

Like Prince Charming.

Others of us will, like Dante,

Resign ourselves to forever

Seek the goddess

Just beyond our reach,

Content to only catch a glimpse.

Either way,

She has taken our heart

Filled our days

And overturned our lives.

We would put everything on the line for her.

We would hope to win her heart,

Or at least buy her a house.

Someday I would like to hear

Cinderella’s story.

Is hers

As upended

As mine?

                              ~ CK

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