Christine E. Salvatore, Bedtime Stories

In the old fairytales,
someone is always sad.
And the sadness is always
for something missing.
Then the missing something
shows up at the gate of the kingdom,
and everyone is happy again.

On the evening news,
a mother has lost her son,
and someone has told her
it is someone else’s fault,
and her sadness is deep
and furrows her brow
as she begins to hate
those others for her aching heart.

There is nothing waiting in the rain
outside this kingdom’s gate
no prince or old woman
or strange creature
with one wish to grant,

only the walls we have built.
Only the keys
we have hidden
can release us.

Wishes

My heart is the weight
on the fishing line of my day
preventing anything good
from rising.

I swallow back bated breath
as if oxygen
through the alimentary canal
could keep my lungs from folding

and cast my arms cast wide
for anything
that can stick in my teeth,
feed the blind worm in my belly
that wants and wants and wants.

No golden fish can instruct me
on what to do next but I mine
the spreading dusk,
one eye on the horizon
for something to sustain
this little boat,

then sink my line deeper
into the fluid depths
until I can see

a shimmer
just below the surface
circling the hook.