First the ruby slippers,
straight from the yellow
brick road, dust still
at the heel.
The Super Man t-shirt next,
its Fisher Price plastic cape
got in the way of sensible
things like car seats.
At five I knew who
Marilyn Monroe was,
the turquoise fifties
number, two sizes
too small.
Red welts on my arms
when they cut me
out of it. My mother
bit her lip, eyeballed my
disappearing fairy wings,
mouthed over and over:
I did not dress that child.
