you deserve
Truth clenched in both hands
For years I have puzzled
How would she know
“The real story?”
The only “mother” she ever knew kept her locked in a tower
Named her after stolen
Salad greens
Tell your twin
Running to Canada was the
line I could not, would not
Cross for love
Unlike a man we both know
Who crossed lines of law and love
Abandoned wife and children
Hid his treasure
Said he could not pay
No fairytale love-
Story for his first wife
Little ones
there are records of these things
The faces of the abandoned are familiar to you now
Unlike your own mother’s
Who they kept from you
Fear and sin will make an ordinary
Monster out of us all.
Sadie’s foster mother told me once-
They are Christians, you know!
Christians do not steal babies
Live lies
Or put their assets in their girlfriends’ names
But how would Rapunzel know that?
She would have to borrow her sisters’
Plaited hair
A ladder to
Set all three free
Then look for the small stones
Of Truth
Scattered along
the long road
Home.
Carrying Light 