Sleep

Sleeping Beauty, my favorite fairy tale,
She knew what she was in for.
She prickled past years, yawned through them.
Thorny harvests, high celebrations, callous birthdays.

She held breath fifteen times with a puckered peach mouth.
She pricked herself to sleep.
She held that deadening, those harlequin visions,
As mothers hold their children.

When a man came to rescue her, through sleep
I could not warn him of the gift he would destroy.



[July 2009]