fairytales are meant to be
in leather-bound tomes but
i didn't want to kill cows so
i bought a paperback version.

but the last page was blank
so I wondered of the aftermath
of happily ever afters -

does Cinderella limp like Chinese women
with bound feet, her own trapped
forever in their pretty glass enclosures?
would Ariel row with her Prince because
he wants to serve fish for their wedding banquet?
can Aurora bear her Prince children or
did she have her menopause in her blessed sleep?

(and I wonder if Snow White's husband
gets jealous when she's with seven other men).

ended up writing my own epilogue
of Maleficient, Ursula and Ole' Stepmother
drinking rum in a KTV pub and
telling princesses I told you so.

but cyncism's blood seeped through
the cheap paper and stained the
illustrations so I had to throw it away;
and anyway Walt Disney stormed
through the door and accused me of blasphemy.

so now I dream of princesses without tiaras
(it makes the scalp itch anyway)
that don't have SK-II complexions –
imperfection is easier to love and
you forgive them when they PMS.

(oh by the way did you hear?
an Indian woman moved in next door.
she calls herself Pocahantas
and cooks dinner over a campfire;
IMAGINE. how terribly unhygienic.)