Rampion
Here’s the thing about Rapunzel
that children’s books and movies
don’t get into much. The witch
stole the parents’ child, yes,
but they sold her for a little lettuce,
something to munch on and make mom
feel good for a minute or two
until the next need came on
and she wanted toast, or French fries,
or a Wendy’s Frosty, or a little meth,
or a bag of something.
Maybe a fur coat. Her father
wasn’t much better. Yes, I will steal
that for you. That’s how I am a man.
I sneak into an old lady’s yard
after dark and steal her vegetables
and act like a victim. Sure, she says,
you can have that rampion
and I will take that baby. Nicer
than making friends with someone
and then cutting open their abdomen
and disconnecting their almost ripened child,
like a woodchuck in the garden,
eating what it wants to hell with who grew it.
Who can blame an old lady?
She wants a baby, to prune
it the way she wants it,
and the baby’s parents wanted food.
That’s capitalism for you. We can
make a deal.
The Youth Who Set Out to Learn What Fear Was
A foolish young man came to a haunted town,
from far away, a place of sunshine,
wildflowers, and ever-blue skies, apparently.
He came to learn what fear was,
because he didn’t tremble and shake at the tales
old wives and husbands told to make the girls
and boys be good, be wise, be afraid.
Unaware of all that lurked on cobbled streets
shiny with either rain or blood, or both,
or that monsters lurk in the shadows,
slimy and terrible, with unpronounceable
names, he was indifferent to the man
with an axe waiting at the end of the street
under a clouded moon, hanging heavy and yellow
over the town, like a warning of sickness.
We all tried to teach him:
the pickpockets at the station,
the minister on the corner, the butcher,
the bartender, the police, and the undead guardian of
the tower belfry, presiding
in sunken-eyed silence over the cemetery
ruled by ghosts and spirits, with a halberd
in his grey hand.
But the youth couldn’t shiver or shake.
Ghosts in the churchyard had no effect on him,
nor threat of zombie revolution.
Only his wife held the power in her hands.
She carried chaos in in a wide silver bowl,
right into the bedroom--and dumped it on him.
A million silver minnows in the bed
finally send shivers up his spine.
Now I shudder, dear wife; now I shudder.
Down the streets we can hear him at night.
Now I shudder, dear wife. Now I shudder.
Beauty at Dinner
In the candlelight his shadow seems
to stretch towards her, touching her elbow,
her fingertips on the tablecloth.
She stiffens her backbone against it,
unable to look at his face or look away.
She watches his long yellow teeth
tear chicken from the bone.
Her dress sticks to her back,
her hair to her neck.
He sucks half of an orange for dessert,
so hard he drains the color from it.
Her nipples are hard as plum pits.
She wishes dinner would be over.
Griselda’s Dream
At night, when he is sleeping, his gray head,
turning the pillow yellow, and his white
flaccid arm pinning her to the sheets, she
thinks of the house burning.
At the corner of the bed, where the heavy
curtains meet the posts, there is a curl of
smoke coiling up, just a smudge of air where
the shimmer of impatience arises,
tracking up the bedpost and obscuring
the pattern on the heavy curtains.
Soon they will ignite, and shaking off his
weight, she sits up, as the folds of fabric
burst, a little puff and a small explosion
of orange and yellow in the heavy creases,
and then it travels up to the canopy
in a ripple of tiny armageddon coming soon.
The Wicked Stepmother
It’s what the mirror tells
you that makes you so wicked.
If it would keep its yap shut
you could be good, but no, the shiny
oval speaks whatever it
thinks, whatever it sees.
You are old, it says, and that
makes you wicked. You’ve put on
a few pounds too, and that makes
you wicked. Your eyebrows are
thick and your mouth is all wrong
for what we imagine
beauty to be, and that
makes you wicked, and dark, and
poisonous, as apples, as
hair combs, as the air within
glass boxes. Your belly is
soft and your body is lined
and that makes you wicked.
It’s enough to make anyone wicked.
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