It was an accident! I didn't mean to kill anybody!
-- Dorothy Gale, to the Wicked Witch of the West

I always wanted to fit in
my own shoes,
ruby-tinted, if possible.

The kind
you could steal
from a grief-stricken

woman, and claim
as your own.
It's the power of being handed

someone else's
treasure, someone else's
identity,

a glamorous gift.

And the inevitable irony
that one can only go home
on (and in) the heels

of the dead
is not so much
magic,

as the fragile allure
of history

unburdened by witches
and accidents,
skipped.