anastasia

is the prettier of us two sisters

for she has inherited my mother's looks

cheek bones, red & gayly smiling--

people love those who look like themselves

while I inherited my father's thick brows

sharpness in looks & of course inherited

the snobbish contempt plastered on our faces
 

beauty is pain

& my ugliness should not be dismissed

as a commoner's contriving complaint or

a simpleton's fastidiousness
 

for when father died, the pain she

screamed / harbored / fevered transformed

to a hardness surpassing sophistication

clasping the clutches of a rich man

who mourned for his late wife & cared

for his late daughter
 

a father for a father

who could love & cherish

but I am more of a shadow

then the whispers of his dead wife

flickering in the curtains
 

beauty is a process

so how can anastasia

and that rat ella be prettier

than I, the reminiscent of my

mother's late love?
 

our stepfather returns to the heart

of the sea, mouth closed and salt

destroying the heart (da-dub, da-dub)

& here ella weeps
 

but unlike mother

her features become softer

her slender hands flicked with grace

sadness forlornly suits her face

perhaps I am egregious or

fallacious in my thoughts
 

but she does not deserve that beauty
 

& as I compose myself

shoving her into the pile of ashes

near the hearth of the fire

I return to my room

paint my lips with rogue, line my eyes

& powder my face but as I gaze on

I wonder
 

who could ever love a beautiful face

lacking a warm heart?