Cloak of Invisibility

When the clock strikes midnight,
will she vanish out of sight,
a squashed pumpkin,
a shattered glass slipper,
a homeless, friendless Cinderella?

Cloaked in the nightclub’s anonymity,
dancing in the dark, caressed by strobe lights,
she relished her invisibility,
touched someone else’s damp skin,
caught a glimpse of other people’s lives.

But outside, on the damp street,
without the comfort of sheets and pillows,
she merges into the invisible world
of cardboard boxes, doorways, and shadows.

Kim M. Russell, 14th April 2020

person sitting beside building looking straight to the street at golden hour

My response to Imaginary Garden with Real Toads NaPoWriMo Day 14 Play it Again in April 2020: Invisible, also linked to earthweal open link weekend #40 for World Homelessness Day

On this date in 2017, Marian asked us to muse on invisibility: what does it feel like, who or what is it, would it be a cool superpower?

I’m merging this prompt with Kerry’s Skylover Wordlist, sourced from Dylan Thomas’s poetry collection Deaths and Entrances, from which the fourteenth word is ‘strike’.

Image found on Unsplash

25 thoughts on “Cloak of Invisibility”

  1. I LOVE this! The idea, the image of rushing away into the night, invisible with the exception of “a shattered glass slipper,” is timeless! 👏💝

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  5. It’s hard to imagine where they go when the image stops. You did so very well, I take it your writer thinks they/he/she as fallen in the homeless category. I dream of a few, what are they doing now, tonight, their haunts. Some I’d rather forget but the images are still there, the thoughts leave quickly. ..

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Your use of the Cinderella story here is excellent. And then the move from the ball to the “invisible” world of the homeless….the tangible cardboard box homes and shadows. They are there….but invisible. I think it is also that so many refuse to see them.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you, Brendan. I was surprised to learn that young homeless girls still went clubbing before the pandemic. But then,.it’s a good way to get warm before they face the streets again.

      Like

      Reply

  11. I think this marvelously images the distinction between our outer and inner selves — what the world sees, what we truly feel within. For most its a rather suburban malaise — so what — but people on the extremes feel this as sharply as the scenario you send up. Madness is a cold lonely place. (So is homelessness …) Well done – Brendan

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      2. No crossed wires, Suzanne. At almost 65, I feel invisible, and it made me happy when someone noticed me in shopping queue or at the library. Now I’m invisible to everyone outside the house.

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.