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Snow White to the Prince

 after Susan Thomas

Truth is, my life was no fairytale, 
that afternoon, I lay, a smiling corpse
under a glass sky, a rotten apple
lodged in my throat like a black lump
of cancer, your sloppy kiss dying on my lips.

Did you really believe a kiss could cure
the poison galloping through my veins, 
as you stood there, with your ugly white horse, 
the voices of dwarfs buzzing like flies
in the apple-scented air? 

I wish you could see me now, 
how I take to the sky, a witch 
without a broom, an empty black silhouette
with stars for teeth, spooking deer
into briar patches, swallowing the shadows of trees. 

I wish I could slip into my beautiful white flesh, 
just once, my pretty white feet stuffed into black slippers, 
my poisoned-breath fogging up the smiling mirror. 
If only you could see the light pouring from my skin.
If only you could hear the songs my bones sing.






Book: Reflection on the Important Things