Wednesday, November 12, 2014

111214

Blanche


“Mother” hated her from the day they met:
Blanche looking down, hair blowing free,
“Mother” shooting curses with every furrow-browed stare,
her own son dead (she could have no more);
the King didn't care: he had Blanche.

Fairest in the land, no magic needed to see that,
fairest till down the tower stair she flew,
awoke in a shuttered room: _Log-Legs_, they called her,
tho none visited save stable-boy Tim,
her playmate from when they were small.

He'd been gone a week, her asking, asking,
“Mother” said _he did it_, with a casual head toss,
_must've, else why'd he run
when I had the Sherriff question him?_

Run.

Princess L-L worked on her sticks,
back and forth like a shuttle,
grinding out her name in fury
at the weary pain of it.

One day “Mother” rides out in pageantry,
L.-L. hobble-jumps all the way, stair by stair,
is barrowed forestward by Tim's charcoal burner da,
sticks her way deep in, to a clearing,
sees a smoke-plumed hut, and Tim at the gate,
“Tisn't much,” he says, but... “Hush,
“a gingerbread house all over candy,
“or perambulating castle'd tempt me not;
“I'd pass it by, were you not in it.
“Belike it'd be witch-haunted anyway.”

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