Snow, Blood, Night

I. Mother

Winter is the time of waiting

when the world is eaten by cold and hunger

haunts the shadows. Everything is scraps

and savings, and memories hold until

the sun blesses the trees with leaves.

Where there is snow, bellies shrink

with longing, and the food is all salt

and dryness. Even apples cease

their sweetness after a time.

In the castle's cold, I wanted to feel

filled. I would to my mirror, naked

and run my hands across myself,

the edges of my ribs, the well

of skin that ached beneath them.

I would rock the dream of a child to sleep

all the while weeping. I sang

lullabies to our reflection,

told stories to the darkness. My daughter

must be beautiful by now,

but have lost time to this tower.

The stumps that once were nails won't claw

the stone. Even the blood has stopped.

I cannot keep the days, cannot

tell sun from moon, cannot feel

anything but the worm of hunger

gnawing its way out of me.

II. Stepmother

Every night, I would soak

myself in the lake of the mirror

and rise, clean, a maiden untorn,

until she grew, a calf

ready for veal. Then

I could only draw scars

and wrinkles from the water.

The huntsman brought her lungs

and liver for my table,

but the mirror still spoke of winter

despite the blossoms perfuming

the trees. I will lace ribbons

to string her breath from her lungs,

carve a bone with poison

for her hair. She damns

my face with second best,

so I will bless her lips

with this apple, watch her

fall with the first red bite.

III. Daughter

Winter is a shroud the world wears

when it grows weary of the sun, and days

forget themselves to darkness. I had lived

in the woods so long, I could have been the earth

itself, dark with years of leaves and rot.

The men returned to me each night to mine

between my legs. Their stench would soak my sheets

and cling to my skin, but I didn't mind.

Night after night, they came to me, like monks

drawn to prayer. They became the bells

of my cathedral, my Book of Hours. They left

me trinkets for my flesh, gold and diamonds,

until it seemed like I was a jewel myself.

I grew numb to cold and would lie in the snow

beneath the moon. I watched the storm pull down

the stars and cling to me. Lying still,

I was just another tree or stone in the landscape,

motionless, glittering with ice as though entombed

in glass. The lord of the land discovered me

asleep, lifted me upon his horse,

and rode me to his castle. His wife is a witch

who watchs me like a raven on a corpse.

But the men who love me know the secrets of iron,

the ways of lock and key. They visit me

when the moon is in a womb of clouds, and stoke

their fires. I will become the queen, bejeweled

and admired. The lady of the land withers.

Her skin is lined with years. Soon she will slip

these shoes upon her feet and learn to dance.