Once
I won’t start with once
upon a time. Because that’s the whole
story isn’t it, lovely as she was
with her hair like honey? She bled
alone on the bed when he’d left
and the queen set her to work threading
needles in the dark. She saw
what she shouldn’t have: beauty
in the place of a serpent and that’s when
she learned regret. The three drops
of tallow on his skin or the moment
the weather changed and she wished
for wings. Then a dress of rags
and the rough stones of the brook.
The whiskered fish and the trees
casting their dark shadows. I won’t
start with once—the girl
on the bed, bleeding—the task of dowsing,
the long search for the mouth
of the underworld and the lover
with his scent of appleflesh and musk.
The time it takes to turn
away—one breath—and her body
clenched around its knot of hunger. 