ALTERNATIVES
1.
I ate the fish,
though it offered me anything I wanted.
I wanted something to eat,
so I snapped its neck and brought it home.
My wife made soup with a few wild greens.
If she’d known, she would have fussed.
She wants more.
I want less.
Enough to eat,
a roof over my head.
My little boat,
and the water, and the air.
2.
I was Vasilisa the fair, destined
to marry the tzar.
I carried Mother’s blessing
like a little doll in my pocket.
I did all the witch required.
I was on the edge of safety,
but I did not heed the doll’s trembling
and I asked about the hands.
Now the doll lies at the bottom of a well
and those disembodied hands are mine,
and the white bones in the fence,
the mortar and pestle,
the chest of wonders.
The skull above the door.
3.
When they left for the ball
and the house was quiet,
I went into the garden
and stood beneath the tree
on Mother’s grave.
Stars, a thin moon—
the sky all silver and blue.
Through the silence,
my Mother spoke,
gentle, like a dove.
She told me what to take,
where to go.
Now I’m old,
in my cottage with my cat,
content as any queen.
Why would I want
to be queen, when I have
a gown of moonlight,
a crown of stars?
4.
Here, my dear,
is the little hood I wore
when I was a girl.
And here is the little basket
I carried when I went
to see my granny.
I’ve put some cookies
in the basket.
Don’t eat them all
on your way home.
5.
It was difficult at first,
that other woman’s daughter,
so lovely and so spoiled.
She resented me, though I told her
I would never try
to take her mother’s place.
(I’d had a stepmother, too,
and I knew how it was.)
When she ran away,
her father and I searched everywhere.
We found her in the forest
with those little men—
you can imagine what he thought
though she insisted all was well.
She would not come home,
though her father pleaded,
offered her dresses, jewels, a prince,
anything she desired.
I told him to let her be.
She was old enough
to make her own way,
strong enough to survive.
When we left her there,
her father said it was like
leaving her in a coffin.
I told him to wait,
and I was right.
She came home
not long afterwards.
It was easier then,
as if we’d become allies,
which, I suppose, we were.
6.
On my sixteenth birthday
I climbed the stairs into the west tower.
There was an old woman there,
turning a wheel.
A thin thread formed under her hand,
like magic. She invited me to try,
but I don’t believe in magic,
so I thanked her,
and went back down to the party.
7.
Every day, I am thankful
for this generous goose.
Without her, all of us here
would still be poor.
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