October daily special, in case you couldn’t get enough of all the creative content craziness from Jennifer Weigel we’re posting one a day for the whole of the month!
The whole of the castle was acutely aware
of the girl’s coming into womanhood –
blush-red apple lips ripe for the picking,
practically begging to be kissed.
“Just like your mother,” the King proclaimed
as he’d climbed into his daughter’s bed;
the horrified princess blossoming into
the beloved woman that he’d lost long ago.
Her stepmother knew, her heart filled
with jealous rage at the infraction;
she smiled gently to the King and Court,
pretending that nothing was different.
But the mirror reflected unspoken truths –
her own beauty, her only power, eclipsed
by the young princess trapped at her side;
both left without recourse, actionless.
Neither the Queen nor her stepdaughter
had chosen this fate – they wished it undone,
that the teenage girl could remain innocent
to the misdeeds and misgivings of men.
But the incest poisoned the Queen’s musings
and she came to also blame the princess
for the transgression of seducing the King,
and for her own helpless lack of autonomy.
So, the maiden ran away to the forest,
not only to escape her stepmother’s rage
and her father’s undesired adoration,
but to determine her future for herself.
The dwarves’ cottage was the perfect hideaway –
hidden deep in the woods where magic dwelled,
ready to guide any unsuspecting princes astray;
safe at last, Snow White found her own power.
There was no poisoned apple, nor a glass coffin,
but rather a witchy woman living with friends
far from those horrific deeds that too often are
protected by wealth, power, and privilege.
(Image features photograph taken from within Patrick Dougherty sculpture at Mark Arts in Wichita.)
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