once upon a time
a child is given a snow globe
by an aunt or an uncle,
he can't remember which

inside the globe
a little man sits on a bench
looking at a little woman
with silver slippers
her arms are outstretched
as if to embrace the sky

when he shakes it
the world inside
becomes alive
he thinks this
but he doesn't know for sure,
he is only a child

His conscience, a cornucopia of hopes. On this night, he shares it with the graceful womanin silver slippers. He takes her hand for he has much to say. She listens attentively, but she already knows. She loves the way his hair falls, the small scar on his cheek. The way he smiles before a sentence. As if to be sure she is following him.

He has so much more to tell her, but he stops. Folds his hands. There's never enough time.

Tomorrow we'll run faster, she says, stretch our arms further over the waters, be borne ceaselessly into the past. Head reeling, she turns round and round. Her slippers dissolve in a slivery blur. A snowfall of stars descends.

the child is sleepy
he stops shaking the globe
places it carefully
on his dresser.

Marge Ballif Simon free lances as a writerpoetillustrator for genre and mainstream publications such as Strange Horizons, flashquake, Sniplits, Vestal Review, Flash Me Magazine, The Pedestal Magazine, Dreams & Nightmares, Tales of the Unanticipated, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, and the anthologies, High Fantastic and Nebula Anthology 32. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, "Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side." She is the editor of Star*Line, Digest of the SF Poetry Association. In addition to her poetry, she has published two prose collections: Christina's World, Sam's Dot Publications, 2008 and Like Birds in the Rain. Sam's Dot, 2007. She won the Bram Stoker for Best Poetry Collection with Charlie Jacob, Vectors: A Week in the Death of a Planet, Dark Regions Press, 2008.