When I was a child, I ran from lightning

toward fragile roofs and rubber tires.

Those flashes in the sky taught me

that there are no fairytale endings—

one day I would have to die.

 

Now I am not afraid of the flash.

I have greater things to fear and I know

my death will take place in the dark

 

as a man—his gait slow,

the smacking of his teeth—hunts me down.

Is he there?  I will ask the trees,

and their golden leaves will tremble,

trapped in his shadow. 

 

On the destined night, the veiled man—

as if he were Prince Charming—will force his lips onto mine. 

His poisonous kiss. The trees will mourn my death, 

leaves falling to the muddy earth. 

 

Probability says:

1 in 3000 struck by lightning.

1 in 3 snatched away.

That night in the darkness,

like a princess whose foot slides into a glass slipper, 

I will be the 1.

 

Maggie Connolley