A Length of Tattered Cloth

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A Length of Tattered Curtain

In the fairy tale
she cannot help herself.
The beastly silhouette, so fraught with mystery and danger
compels her gaze.
The great white bear with candles flickering behind him
calls with primal urgency to her eyes and to her mind.
She has been commanded not to look deeply.
To keep her eyes no further than the curtain.
But how can curiosity be stifled?
The curtain hangs between her candle and his,
she and silhouette both share the space between–
in their sharing, the bear's shadow
bold and stolidly oblivious to her watching eyes,
it seems.
At once, the lights become thin streams of smoke
and all is dark.
Mysterious, a man then joins her side,
his taut skin tactile canvas for his long and flowing hair.
Each night, her fear of bear and fate keep her gaze
on shadow and on curtain for a while.
The candles, replaced each day by unknown hand
give their meager light each night.
Her look again is drawn–
A lullaby of beast and shadow plays across her heart.
Once more, the wicks go silent;
once more, a gentleman becomes her partner in the blackness.
She must admit when castle roaming after dawn
that fear of beast can have its strange rewards.
Though chaste they share a bed,
her unwitting hand can lazily admire the strength
of her companion's arms and chest,
for he sleeps quite soundly there.
When finally, finally she looks,
as sure she must,
with tallow candle keeping back the night,
a prince is found.
Glorious he sleeps,
his massive shoulders moving as he breathes.
His silky flaxen hair is strewn across his neck and chest.
Three drops of tallow wax become her doom
as fall they must and wakened he becomes.
His eyes grow wide.
His outstretched hand grips the hanging curtain in his panic.
It tears, then falls, the candles tumbling with it.
the room is plunged with darkness once again.
A banishment.
A fall.
And then an ardent search
as wandering she goes to seek her prince.
She trudges East and West and places in between.
Her footprints in the snow behind her vanish with the wind.
She sees her breath and so remembers tallow smoke.
Each day her memory of bear and of a prince
becomes a visionary scab she loves to pick,
a torture to herself that drives her will to not relent.
With robust mind, she wills her feet to move.
Find him she must,
her weak patience and cursed curiosity at fault
for her princely bear's pain.
In her little bag,
a length of tattered curtain
keeps her cheese from freezing.