23.august.09

A girl — lovelocked, alone — wanders into a forest
where lions and wolves lie in wait.
The girl feeds them caramels from the pockets of her paper dress.
They follow like dogs.

if you knew what she ran from
how her mother cursed her with golden hair, that face.
she can dance just as she used to dance,
in dresses shining as the stars,
in dresses pale as the moon,
but she is not the same princess.
In older stories, where she is a saint,
she never even gets to the safety of you.

She sleeps under olive trees, praying for rescue.
In her dreams doves fly in circles, crying out her name.

She weeps tears that cannot be heard
but turn to rubies when they hit the ground.
She lifted her hand against the light
and it became a feathered wing.

She learns the songs of mockingbirds, parakeets, pheasants.
She wanders into the forest more herself.
There is a dragon curled around eggs.

There is a princess who is also a white cat, and a tiny dog
she carries in a walnut shell.
She befriends a reindeer who speaks wisdom.
They are all in her corner.

It seems unlikely now
that she will ever return home,remember what
it was like, her mother and father, the promises.

She will adopt a new costume,
set up shop in a witch's castle,
perhaps lure young princes and princesses
to herself, to cure what ails her —
her loneliness, her grandeur,
the way her heart has become a stone.