“Whenever she heard the Witch's voice she unloosed her plaits and let her hair fall down out of the window about twenty yards below, and the old Witch climbed up by it.” Lang, Andrew, ed. “Rapunzel.” The Red Fairy Book. New York: Dover, 1966.

it is not their craggy faces

or blind egg-y eyes

in the May morning blaze

white through pocked glass

or their curled hands

like convulsing spiders

riddled with purple veins

that frighten me on this mercy trip

third grade project

but their furious petting

with my plaits

gold as the moonlit stairways

of old convents

a ladder they would clamber

nimble and spry

up to my soft soul

they croon lullabies

in tongues I do not know

the words, strange food

rampion to my tongue

unseasonable fruit,

spicy sour, yet longed for

I will be flesh of your flesh,

wear your pale hides.

new bone of your old bone

word of your word

Lucy Simpson