by Kate LaDew
dangling pinwheels your breath will never move hemingway didn't actually write that story about the baby shoes someone did, someone had to, but no one knows who it's amazing how adding three letters to a word changes everything cinderella's carriage changed back into a pumpkin at midnight I changed back into a woman instead of a mother at 10am on a Sunday morning part of me wonders if I'd been getting ready for church instead of brunch if it all might've been different brunch and church are both six letters long (baby shoes story - six words) almost the same, brunch, church, bun in the oven, you're shaped like a pumpkin the carriage is missing I had misgivings miss, your carriage awaits miss, you have a lovely carriage miss, carriage, be safe miscarriage - the birthdate the hospital guessed for you is circled in red on the calendar if I had used a pink marker, maybe blue, might it all have been different? red is for mistakes, mis -takes mis-taken for someone who could raise a child god snapping his fingers (his, sir, not miss) presto-change-o alone again with the residue of you, scouring my insides like a dirty oven, the smell of pumpkin pie and milk and baby wipes and powder and the dreams I had for someone who doesn't exist anymore
Kate LaDew is a graduate from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art. She resides in Graham, NC with her cats Charlie Chaplin and Janis Joplin.