Like Alice

Secrets fang beneath smiles,
whispering crystalline shards,
and I, a child, caught off guard,
perch on kaleidoscope’s bright
edge, swallowing the dizzy

whirl and fall into splays
of red and purple, sprawl
of cracks on a frozen pond
where I spin on skates, flung
from a steady, gloved hand

through sun-beamed air
and crash through land that silvers,
rusts, while I careen like white
water, punching and spilling end-
over-end through the earth’s pale blue crust.

 

 

Mary Beth Hines, formerly a project manager, writes poetry and short fiction and non-fiction from her home in Massachusetts. Her work has been published, or is forthcoming, in journals such as Crab Orchard Review, The Galway Review, Gyroscope Review, The Lake, Literary Mama, and Sky Island Journal, among others.