Tale

Ashes gritty gray
The kindest heart battered
Assailed by sneers 
Adorned in tatters

Dreaming improbably
Days end to end
Invitation omitted
When enchantment descends

She enters the ballroom
In her splendor aglow
Heads turn to see her
A sight to behold

Bewitched and bewitching
As they take the floor
Yet the warning was given
To midnight, no more

Their dance not of steps
So smoothly they glide
Shyness cast off
New love shines in their eyes

Her name was unspoken
As the moments fly past
With chimes striking twelve
She flees with a gasp

He tries to pursue her
Through night’s mirrors and smoke
But she’s gone as if magic 
Swept her up in its cloak

All that remains
As she slips from his grasp
Is his heart, full of longing
And a slipper of glass.