Cinderella

The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels,
Her green eyes slant, hair flaring in a fan
Of silver as the rondo slows; now reels
Begin on tilted violins to span

The whole revolving tall glass palace hall
Where guests slide gliding into light like wine;
Rose candles flicker on the lilac wall
Reflecting in a million flagons' shine,

And glided couples all in whirling trance
Follow holiday revel begun long since,
Until near twelve the strange girl all at once
Guilt-stricken halts, pales, clings to the prince

As amid the hectic music and cocktail talk
She hears the caustic ticking of the clock

Rathiy

Farewell to Sumana by Leong Liew Geok

Sumana,
Go home and find a good man to marry.
Now you leaving us,
You free do what you like:
Keep long nails, put Cutex,
Wake up late, wear pretty clothes.
You find good man marry.Not any man – good man,
You understand?

Look after your savings.
Don’t lend any people.
After you don’t see your money anymore,
You don’t see their face also.
It’s your money – you work hard.
Keep it for yourself.
Maybe spend on wedding and house?

You want to come back as housemaid again?
No use, no use.
After ten years you too old to work.
Then who look after you?
Nobody want you for housemaid.
Afraid you fall sick, die in house.
Then how?

In Singapore, many women work
Even after marry; Sri Lanka,
Not same – difficult to do.
Maybe nice man no ask for dowry.
Maybe good man want good woman,
Not young or pretty face,
Or one million rupees.

Looking at Miss World (Grace Nichols)

Tonight the fat black woman

is all agaze

will some Miss (plump at least

if not fat and black) uphold her name

The fat black woman awaits in vain

slim after slim aspirant appears

baring her treasures in hopeful despair

this the fat black woman can hardly bear

And as the beauties yearn

and the beauties yearn

the fat black woman wonders

when will the beauties

ever really burn

O the night wears on

the night wears on

judges mingling with chiffons

The fat black woman gets up

and pours some gin

toasting herself as a likely win.

Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see, I swallow immediately.
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me.
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.