June 2016
Laurel Peterson
laurelpeterson@att.net
laurelpeterson@att.net
I’ve been writing since I was eight, despite being told that I shouldn’t. Writing revealed too much. This is why I tell my students they should never be afraid to put the truth on the page. I’m a community college English professor, who alternately loves and despairs of her students. I’ve written lots of different things—newspaper columns, academic stuff, poems (including two chapbooks and a forthcoming full-length collection) and a couple of mystery novels, one of which will be published this spring by Barking Rain Press. I have the very great pleasure of serving the town of Norwalk, Connecticut, as its poet laureate. At this very moment, my dog is sniffing through my trash for a draft of something to chew on. My website: www.laurelpeterson.com
Divorcing Mr. Sleeping Beauty
I should probably discount the fairy
thing at my husband's birth; you know,
twelve invited, the thirteenth slighted,
so she curses him from here to
eternity with a spastic spindle.
The day my husband graduated high school,
his father's death made him
the man of the house:
tassles and beer bashes
chased with sirens
and antiseptic-smelling terror.
Sleep after that spindle prick came easy.
In the story, everyone sleeps:
the lobster poised over the cooking pot,
the mouse in the cat's mouth,
the thief with the noose on his neck.
No one ages.
No one even grows
one beard hair or
long fingernail.
In the story, the prince
doesn't try to hack through the briars
until the hundred years are up.
In the story, the prince bleeds from
the slashing thorns for only one day.
In the story, fire works
against the hedge's defense,
and the prince knows he can
waken Sleeping Beauty; she wants
to waken.
In life, nothing worked.
Not fire.
Not water.
Not air.
Not earth.
And not heaven.
I drove past the castle last week.
Weeds consume the rose garden.
A mound of wood chips
decomposes in the driveway.
Wisteria trailers wind around
the arms and legs of deck furniture,
encasing space in foliage.
Somewhere inside,
he's waiting for Princess Charming
but watch out, sister.
Briars will pin your dress to the dirt;
vines will cuff your ankles and wrists.
You will wait with him
for the hundred years to end—unless
the clock, too, sleeps.
I should probably discount the fairy
thing at my husband's birth; you know,
twelve invited, the thirteenth slighted,
so she curses him from here to
eternity with a spastic spindle.
The day my husband graduated high school,
his father's death made him
the man of the house:
tassles and beer bashes
chased with sirens
and antiseptic-smelling terror.
Sleep after that spindle prick came easy.
In the story, everyone sleeps:
the lobster poised over the cooking pot,
the mouse in the cat's mouth,
the thief with the noose on his neck.
No one ages.
No one even grows
one beard hair or
long fingernail.
In the story, the prince
doesn't try to hack through the briars
until the hundred years are up.
In the story, the prince bleeds from
the slashing thorns for only one day.
In the story, fire works
against the hedge's defense,
and the prince knows he can
waken Sleeping Beauty; she wants
to waken.
In life, nothing worked.
Not fire.
Not water.
Not air.
Not earth.
And not heaven.
I drove past the castle last week.
Weeds consume the rose garden.
A mound of wood chips
decomposes in the driveway.
Wisteria trailers wind around
the arms and legs of deck furniture,
encasing space in foliage.
Somewhere inside,
he's waiting for Princess Charming
but watch out, sister.
Briars will pin your dress to the dirt;
vines will cuff your ankles and wrists.
You will wait with him
for the hundred years to end—unless
the clock, too, sleeps.
Originally published in The Distillery, July 2004, in a slightly different version
©2016 Laurel Peterson
©2016 Laurel Peterson