he prowls, primps, wipes his fingerprints on the glowing buttons of the jukebox. new flesh, and he’s propping up the bar: hair tousled, boots pointed, cigarettes bulking his pocket. smoking kills, but so do his cheekbones in the light of a shared match. his pretty words are a breadcrumb trail right to his bed. Lord Feintheart, long
[continue reading…]

The time they lose is not the same as mine. No spell decreed they’d not decay with time Like cheese and cherries, chocolate, even wine That blackens to a sludge, drips free in slime — No life but mold within this cage of mine. Our clothes thinned out with heat, with cold, with rain, Till wind
[continue reading…]

“Herr Grimm,” said the professor, staring down the side-​​​​burned, half-​​​​cocked smile; a man who knows too much, a German in modern fairytale. “Und Sie auch, Herr Grimm.“ The brothers snigger behind their cell phones. “Greta ate too much Kinder chocolate.“ The hallways, awash with rumor, foiled tongues: the Grimms listen, tap out the stories on tiny keyboards,
[continue reading…]

After the single went silver, Dad bought us a house on the Jersey Shore, but he wasn’t there with us much because he had to go on tour. And every night, after I was supposed to be in bed, Mom walked to the beach in her nightgown and cried into the sea. My bedroom’s on the second
[continue reading…]

The honeysuckle was blooming, supporting the swollen sky and twisting the fence away from the wild roses, thorns and barbs holding the still and secret nests. I wore shadows and walked with regrets, following the paths of ants, searching for that luminous face in the thunderheads, in the puddles, in every web and fleck of rain.
[continue reading…]

Much later, when she is a queen, she will remember it this way, and regret: It begins with a breeze lifting tendrils of her hair as Eleanor straightens in her saddle, but she does not brush them away from her eyes. She must be a statue, immobile and perfect, before Catriona, the new handmaid. Catriona, who is not
[continue reading…]

All my clothes were smoke upon my flesh — wisps of gazzatum from Palestine or velvet from Kashmir, viscous on my thighs. A princess, I was billowed through on cloth with honeycombs of lace about my limbs, and nothing coarse to callous skin and scrape the body raw. I was a stranger to wool, to flax, to hemp. Mystics
[continue reading…]

I knew my elder sister would return to sweep the ashes. She would part sugar from sand, she would fill my mouth with honey. She would bring shoes, red ones with buckles. She would raise me. I would be buried under the juniper tree, I would be cooked in the stew, I would be eating poisoned apples and
[continue reading…]

“Your hair,” says Teagan. I blush, glad of the confusingly dim glow of the candle in the Thai restaurant. I’m sensitive about my wild dark curls, at once glorious and unprofessional. Teagan leans forward. “You should always leave your hair loose, Shawanna.” He’s got a charming smile, bracketed by two deep dimples. “Like a princess in a fairytale or a play.”
[continue reading…]

I remember when Rapunzel lived with Aladdin, magical lanterns alight in her hair, and Goldilocks was Sindbad’s lover — so tenderly he took off her dress, and blew her porridge cold. Then he went away to sea to found a heavier city of gold. A jack-​​​​in-​​​​the-​​​​box drowned my friend and my phoenix both, like Henny Penny foxes,
[continue reading…]

I am the queen of hell or heaven, I am the king of life or death: I am the lord of little places: I am the prince of stone and breath: I am the merchant’s eldest daughter: I am the hangman’s wayward son: I fell in love with seven maidens and I never married one. I fell in love with seven princes and
[continue reading…]

“It was barely three months after my husband died when the Thorns swallowed the castle.” This was the tale, as my mother told it, her hands shaping and slapping the dough rhythmically. “I was young and heartbroken at having lost him so soon after we married. I suppose I became less cautious or simply cared less. So
[continue reading…]

Cuts shallow, burns small. Scars grow like hoarfrost. What poisoned words pierced your heart pulling you beyond my reach? Torpor reigns where passion shone. Blossoms bloomed in May’s sun, as blood ran over the green. I’ll not bind you with cloth or iron. I’ll not leave you to slip beneath the hillside. Instead I’ll bend
[continue reading…]

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.
[continue reading…]

At the palace of the North Wind, the Lapland witches Are busy braiding and pleating, knotting the cold winds Into blustery patchworks, and foul-​​​​weathered folds: They bind and weave with patient, wind-​​​​bitten fingers And carry their wintry threadworks in long trains behind them To the topmost of the world’s topmost, and unspool each one, long
[continue reading…]