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Perrault's Tale

-36Perrault ’s Tale In the story I tell you there are two girls, sisters. One is beautiful, the other sweeps the brown cinders over the hot bricks. It is she, the plainer, who meets the woman in the woods, who is blessed with rose hips and juniper under her step, smooth stones fallen like words, rounded by breath. This is how she learns to sing. Her sister speaks, and her tongue forks into snakes, leading away. I am the woman in the woods. Two nights after the night I learned to separate sex from pain, the old threads restitched themselves. He cupped his hands. I looked inside and saw the blue of our little world, the drop-stitch of stars, the black jag where the needle had missed.We slept. I tried to slip my hand inside, but his fingers were laced. My hem crept down, covering knees. On my tongue: an amethyst, swallowed. I don’t know how to tell you what she grew into. She was plain, after all.The tacks were rough. The red petals bruised under feet, and made the kitchen floorboards slick with blood. Her sister’s snakes scared the village away. Eventually, the men stopped coming to the door with axes tipped behind their heads. The sky grew large past the half moon of their blades. From the box in the attic, she took the old dress. She would let the dress out. She would fill it with her body. -37- ...