Cinder-Esther
by Daryl Muranaka
She stands there, in the sky blue
Disney dress and worn brown boots,
munching on a hamantash,
her “don’t mess with me” stare
turned up to 11. This Cinderella is
not going to bite the dust.
But at the end of the party,
the eyes of a little princess
filled with pure, unmitigated plea
the open hands, fingers out-stretched
like sunflowers reaching for the sky,
waiting for me to pick her up,
let her wrap her arms around my neck.
Just one more day when I will tell her
that the world is not as bad as I found it
that the monsters she sees are alive
only in her head, that the Hamans
who are real and unreal, the bad guys
she doesn’t understand, that hate
her for no reason, that hate
the shape of things to come,
must come through me first
and I am waiting for them at the door.
Purim 2014
Gyroscope Review 30
!