The Serpent of the White Rose (4)

Then I understood: For ten years my memory had carried
One fabulous image the younger son of the king
Could never impair. How had I thought to marry
One so impatient and light? A trivial thing
He seemed in his gorgeous cloth, too silly to harry
My heart anymore. The Serpent, heir to the king,

Was to be my lord. Had I not always known?
The secret that smiled in the turns of my heart, hidden
So long, would emerge shining. I touched my talisman
And it shivered in splinters. I answered, "I have been bidden
And I will come. Tell them prepare my gown
And set the feast. And you Prince, who have ridden

"This far to bid me for him, be at peace.
It was not of you that I dreamed. I was wrong. You may send
The carriage now. "Ny heart stirred no release
The coiled smile that I would not need to amend
Anymore, I went to take my leave and ease
My father's fear a girl at her fantasy's end.

Crack hearted fool!" he roared. "I reared you low
For a man as humble as earth. What a way from mild
To mad! I never taught you this. You know
Nothing of living. Aaaand will you die, despoiled
In violence for a word spoken?" "To go
Is more than contract. It is love. I have willed

This wedding for ten years. I will wear ten gowns
Of gossamer, like fantasy, and bathe in milk."
"And bathe in blood on your bed when he lays you down,
My girl, my only child, on sheets of silk."
He wept for me. "Blood in my bed alone
For passion, Father. I think to kill the snake."

To kill a snake ten switches, bark stripped, clean.
I bathed i milk, then dressed in the shifts of gossamer,
Lighter than fantasy, put on the wedding gown
And gathered this switches. Veiled, I was driven to where
I was to marry the thing I had not seen.
Before my carriage the crowd gave way in fear.

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