*

A snippet of the fairytale from Snow White’s perspective

*

Mother, the moon approaches,

and the sky is still and full of snow,

a late snow falling deep into spring

and the woods, and the dark words of a woman,

who sits with her tears and talks to the mirror.

 

Mother, the wind is thin and full of crying,

and the woods are deep with pleading fingers.

A spinning wheel clatters

deeper in footsteps of frozen moonlight.

My stitches stretch in front of me, patchwork,

like the fields used to be; full of poppies,

red as the blood on my finger where the needle slipped,

once too often and blinded all around it.

I used to cry for you under the old horse chestnut,

where you might walk into my dreaming.

 

You would sit and lay your white hands

on empty garden seats, silent swing moving,

rose petals at your feet and on your grave

where the emptiness was louder

when everyone walked away,

and left me there to wait

for the sky to fall and fill like swollen eyes.

I placed my finger on the snow and ran it red,

thawing and melting all around it, life red,

and dust coloured.

 

Daughter, it is spring;

the mill- wheels turn and water spills

and falls.  Light falls low.

Your fingers, glisten heavy on the patchwork,

The raven’s beak dripped smoke,

fire and light from a corner of the sky.

I saw shadows ahead and lifted my face,

wanting to feel the cold once more.

 

Run deeper, with your ghosts, and find

your place within those woods

you never enter.  This house is dark now,

and the glass holds its shadow over you.

Daughter you must run fast and search hard for daylight

in your frozen world, away from her silence.

She’ll have your heart, one way or another.

*

Biography

Lucie Kavanagh lives in Co Mayo in the west of Ireland with an array of pets and plants. She works as a social care worker, though she is currently on sick leave and learning to find her writing voice which has been silent for a while.