October 2021 Flash Lit 1: If the shoe fits

Cinderella, Grandmother

 

Now she sits, rocks, rests.

The house is quiet, children

chased the dog out

into the yard or the world

or adulthood.  Gone, anyway.

Sometimes they clatter back

with their own kids trailing

laces and juice box dribbles

and she hugs them tight.

There are stories to read—

mice, magic, moonlight—

Then lashes curl

on sleeping cheeks, one bare foot

flung out from the quilt.

She smooths the sheet.

Memory, cool as glass,

slips around her.

She dances again at midnight.