Jane unlocked the door to the house
using a key that belonged to her once
upon a time

when, for a butterfly’s lifespan,
she lived in fairyland
had wings, was Technicolor alive
roared and sang

once
there was a psalm, a song of hope,

Do
a deer , a female deer/
Re,
a golden drop of sun/
Me
a name I call

no, she cannot call herself anything now
her voice muted
D and C, replaced
by an eye for an eye

Biblical justice

she looks around
the furniture is all gone,
the baubles of fairyland
broken and scattered

only the empty wire hangers remain
in the closet, the wordless
words

Jane walks the bare floor
a tenant, again, in the house she once thought
was hers too

that oh-so-beautiful body
she no longer owns

dressed in black

Albert N. Katz started a new career as a writer of both short stories and poetry on his retirement three years ago. The winner of the 2020 flash fiction competition from Whispering Prairie Press/ Kansas City Voices for his story “Hocus-Pocus”, Previously published in Panoply, his poems can be found  Ascent, Rattle and the /tEmz/ Review, among others. His short stories have appeared in anthologies, genre-based and literary magazines.