Alison Stone

Once Upon a Time

I was gullible, a trapped

in the tower type,

waiting for rescue.

I ate each offered apple,

practiced dancing with a mop,

grew my hair to a climbable braid.

Nothing.

Feet scrunched into tight shoes,

I slept for days at a time.

Woke grumpy and doped.

Threw my jewels into the pond

and puckered up.

No clomp of hoof beats,

no stranger with magic lips

and an engagement ring.

I tossed crumbs through the bars

to draw the dragon, pricked my finger

on anything sharp I could find. Scrawled

a plea in blood on the castle wall:

My heart is oyster tender.

Take me now.

Still nothing.

Finally, axe in my teeth,

I chopped off my hands, sure

when I was patient, punished

long enough, he’d have to come.

Alison Stone has published four collections. Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Ploughshares, among others. She has been awarded Poetry’s Frederick Bock Prize and New York Quarterly’s Madeline Sadin award. She is also a painter who created The Stone Tarot, as well as a licensed psychotherapist. www.stonepoetry.org