Poem by Melissa Guillet

Illustration by Samantha Scott-Heron



The Red Shoes

Fingers spider tap on the table -
restless dancers.
Give me some yarn,
and I’ll knit you a story
two hundred pearls long.

3 a.m., and the cobwebs
need dusting.
One, two, three, eight
red shoes disturb my sleep.

We spiders are always busy.
Work to do, work to do.

I am the envy of those
who sleep a third of their lives.
Bless me for my insanity;
I am more tired than they know.

This should be a gift -
eight red silk slippers
with threads burning,
neurons firing,
ideas created in fury.
These feet cannot resist the dance.
One needs comfortable shoes.

Finger legs fall faster
than hourglass sand,
typing in staccato
as I spool my guts,
then spill them,
my abdomen marked
by infinity.