Minuet

Beauty and the Beast by Jaimes Alsop 1. The Beast Knowing how you loved the birds I fixed them to the trees so they wouldn't fly away. So you would stay. And you remained silent and never questioned my bloody palms or reproached me the birds because they didn't sing. It couldn't last, of course. No new birds came and those crucified were taken by small animals or simply disappeared from the nails. I was sure then that you would leave me. Finally I confessed. Trembling, I brought you the hammer and showed my broken fingers. Leaves and branches in my hair, the diagrams of Autumn on the sky. And you smiled and said it didn't matter about the birds and drank at my tears like a rare and fragile wine that they too would not be wasted. 2. Beauty I came to you so carelessly there were those who thought I had not been warned. I could only point to the false lovers who carried marks where you had pressed coins into their palms and admit I was impatient for your scars. The rumours followed us as easily as if you murdered me every night; hemlock in my evening wine, a loosened bannister on the stair. The dull villagers and daft princes waited still and at distances for grave news and relentless until I could only point again at their jealous eyes and whisper I had discovered why you handled me as though I were made of glass. I know they want to know about our bodies. Our virginity confuses them and they are reduced to words and silences. What shall we allow them to believe? We are a thousand years old, no histories and nothing to confess.

poem from  Endicott Studio