No one recalls the catalog of dead queens
Whose heirloom beauty condemned daughters:
Their traps of enchantment cradle song and wish —
Listed expectation. Betrothal to boot.

Just once, a princess toppled the coffin.
Wrenched open the lid. Disrupted sleep
Of all the awful After fathers hide.
Here lies the fairest.

Bridal gown gone to floss. Faint brush
Of beetles. Flaked bones and teeth.
Sweet decomposition.
A truer portrait than court gossip offers.

Does Love forgive this indiscretion?
She dares not touch the tapered cage
Her mother’s hand’s become.
Once, harp strings and lilacs shivered

Under the Queen’s ministrations.
Every preparation made to save
Her from answers Mother never knew —
The aftermath of happily ever after.

BIO: Sarah Elizabeth Colona lives and teaches in her home state of New Jersey. Recent poems have appeared in Jabberwocky, Counterexample Poetics, Concise Delight, and The Houston Literary Review.

IMAGE: Xiao Yi Chun, 1727 – 1775

Written by Erzebet

Artist, author, editor, bookbinder. Collector of bones.

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