WINTER, SNOW, THORN

[fulselden]

Written for prompt ‘‘I have daughters and I have sons’ at 31_days
Series: Sleeping Beauty (a generic fairy-tale version)
Rating/Warnings: T. Implied non-con (it's Sleeping Beauty, ok), implied incest. Poetry!fic.
A/N: yeah, it turns out that when you add a male sibling into a fairy story, the dynamic gets pretty disturbing. And Sleeping Beauty is already disturbing! Not to mention, sestinas are already enclosed and cyclical. I should just have gone with Hansel and Gretel, they only get almost eaten.


My wife slid into deep winter white sleep

When she bore me a son and a daughter.

My daughter learned the use of her needle.

My son crept with the frost across the forest.

And the year held winter in its eye

Like a fish curls its lip round a hook.

 

Like a wire-feather lure on a spiked hook

My old fear froze out into snow-sleep

But a glaring old women, her goat-eye

Slid the promise of sleep to my daughter

All alone in the white winter forest

Her future hooked up on a needle

 

My daughter was promised a needle

A red prick in wait like a sharp hook

The witch at the root of the forest

The gift of a red marrow deep sleep

I christened my beautiful daughter

I gave her a coin like a gold eye.

 

I looked at my son with a clear eye

I said boy learn the use of your needle

I trust you, winter child, with my daughter

This castle will wait like a steel hook

We will lie each alone in a sharp sleep

And the witch will raise up the dead forest.

 

Ride out of this white winter forest

Out under the sun like a red eye

Ride out far away from our long sleep

That hangs from the touch of a needle

But remember my boy there’s a gold hook

Remember my son there’s my daughter.

 

He returned for my beautiful daughter

He rode back through the sharp chiming forest

He baited his kiss like a red hook

Like you leave a gold coin on a dead eye.

But my daughter woke holding her needle

Grown goatish and old in her cold sleep

 

In the forest she spread out her green sleep

And she hooked me right in with her needle

My sly winter daughter, her red eye.