Dante's Heart
Fairy Tale
Rikki Santer
“The oyster knows how to inhabit her iridescence...”
Mary Rose O’Reilley; Half Wild
Of all the baubles in her armoire, it was the tar
blossom brooch that pricked her sanity.
Sticky on her Abyssinian collar, it perched
selfishly, lured tendrils like a magnet.
Pooling stray coins, her stepmother,
stepsisters, mother-in-law had obliged
the traveling junk dealer when he knocked
on the doors of their resentment.
So she wore the trinket for her father
and husband, harmony’s lie.
Until one day the archetype hardened
into the deepest black it could.
The snap crackle of its shell broke her
stepmother, mother-in-law, stepsisters
from their snoring, caused the town’s
Richter scale to sit up and prattle.
Our princess went to her armoire
to find a pearl amidst her collar of balding
Abyssinian and when she wrapped it
around her tentative neck, she inhaled
a menthol of fresh iridescence
as her cellphone spawned a school of teeth.
Rikki Santer
“The oyster knows how to inhabit her iridescence...”
Mary Rose O’Reilley; Half Wild
Of all the baubles in her armoire, it was the tar
blossom brooch that pricked her sanity.
Sticky on her Abyssinian collar, it perched
selfishly, lured tendrils like a magnet.
Pooling stray coins, her stepmother,
stepsisters, mother-in-law had obliged
the traveling junk dealer when he knocked
on the doors of their resentment.
So she wore the trinket for her father
and husband, harmony’s lie.
Until one day the archetype hardened
into the deepest black it could.
The snap crackle of its shell broke her
stepmother, mother-in-law, stepsisters
from their snoring, caused the town’s
Richter scale to sit up and prattle.
Our princess went to her armoire
to find a pearl amidst her collar of balding
Abyssinian and when she wrapped it
around her tentative neck, she inhaled
a menthol of fresh iridescence
as her cellphone spawned a school of teeth.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |