~
Ladies-in-waiting
reflecting on
a fragile state of mind
precarious creatures, these
hunters of coal
that outlines both
eyes and words
black paint for blue girls,
they pray in a circle
for their queen's wedding night
to be one of celebratory rapture
deep into the looking glass
they peer for a sign,
a soul, a stigma,
but cannot see
beyond their own glib faces
a universe ago they
caparisoned as pixies
in sunflower corsets,
twirling in a centrifugal forest
tonight in eclipse,
in their all-together,
they merely wear masks
of their former selves
the firelight dramatically shifts
in bacchanalia pratfall
--the oblong menace
of their smiles, fingers and navels
dancing to the age of Sideria
~