Lady
slipper
Lady’s slipper
dew dropped orchid girl at dawn…
“a fool for her stockings,”
someone said I was for hers,
& I admit there were times
sharp high heeled imprints walked
over the backbone
of my soul,
because I let them
& I let them
Lady slipper
Lady’s slipper
dew dropped orchid girl
at dawn…
long gone

from Black Ice & Fire, Poems 1974-2014 by James Ross Kelly