SANDI LEIBOWITZ
The prince’s eyes devour me,
in damask shawls and dancing shoes
or morning’s rumpled flannel.
When my stocking tears,
he bends to buss fresh bud of ankle
flowering through the rip.
Between one bite
of saffroned pheasant and the next,
I try unsnarling the skein of words
one hundred years of sleep have knotted up.
But my husband’s lips twist in distaste.
He squints each time I speak,
trying to imagine her back,
that sleeping girl he loves,
the mute.
I woke to his face dark over me,
his weight stopping my breath,
his cloak pressing thorns into my thighs,
his tongue already busy in my mouth,
and all the world rejoicing
at true love’s admittance.
My throat grows dustier
than my father’s cobwebbed kingdom.
Silence burns like the bonfire of wheels.
All the while, my mind spins dreams
of roses.