A Cinderella Love

For one enchanted night, I was Cinderella at the ball. No fairy godmother did I have to fashion for me a fancy gown or to see me off that night in a golden carriage, and yet I knew . . . at last there had arrived all that I’d ever longed for. The young man of my dreams appeared as if by magic the week before I turned seventeen. I was working in the lowly job of convenience store cashier when I saw beyond me, his warm, chocolate eyes flirting with me! I sneaked peeks at him from my station at the cash register, watching him as he was sneaking peeks at me! There he stood near the frozen foods aisle -the handsome Canadian who would soon reveal to me in conversation a beautifully sexy French accent. As we chatted, I imagined myself a Cinderella who had been missing her other glass slipper. At last my prince had arrived! What joy flooded my spirit when by the end of the week, he placed that coveted glass slipper on my foot, for I was the girl he chose among all the others he had met in his brief stay in my city to be with him before he went away. The stuff of fairy tales does not compare to what ensued when my tall, dark, handsome prince asked me out on a date that last weekend of August. Summer winked goodbye right before my September birthday, and in the most indelible sweet summer ending of all my youth, I was Cinderella as my prince most charming asked, “Will you be mine?” Jan. 8, 2022 for the Be Mine Poetry Contest of Regina McIntosh March 16, 2022 for A Brian Strand 1090 Poetry Contest