Fairytale

She writhed in patent distress—
an unlucky damsel that
the fairytales omitted.

Helplessly tied
to a tree somewhere,
The contours of her body were as
naked as a Roman sculpture:

she was tethered in a
tight dress of blanched silk;
a kimono
locked in a princess’ corset.

Only her bejeweled face
witnessed it all
with those beaming ruby eyes.
Spirals of yarn,
tantalizing rope it would seem,
floundered across the air and mocked
her only means of escape.

Until, quietly,
like a steady ship strolling back to shore,
like a feline frozen at watch for a meal,
like a maelstrom imbibing a glass of Ocean,
arrived her dimwitted lover-to-be;
her gleaming cavalier
riding a mustang black as a burrow,
though he bore a red handkerchief round his fat neck.

They exchanged gazes,
as tainted lovers would,
in unearthly paradox;
The terror in her eyes screamed, “Save me,”
while the tranquility in his teethy grin whispered,
“Relax.”

She clamped her eyes shut.
A kiss of promise divulged into a
long, pretentious laugh,
licked by an impatient tongue.

Devouring fangs seized her eyes first,
and undressed her royal garments to make it easier;
the gluttonous and thirsting,
blood-licking, gut-sucking
eight-legged prince
digged for her body
like somebody digging for crab meat from its shell
while having lunch at The Boiling Crab.