I Like The Quiet: Rapunzel
Solitude my solace, wrapped around me
like layers of golden hair. Stacks of books
and I can sing as loud as I please all day and night.
In sleep I kick and snore, during the day, delight
in eating nothing but radishes and lime leaf tea.
Who says I need a partner to dance? Here
in this tower I am mistress of all; the reindeer,
the knight’s armor teetering in the corner,
various discarded disguises, crowns,
crumbs and bones. Will you rescue me?
What kingdom will replace my bounty
of leisure, what tether of care and nurture
do you wish to rope my neck with?
—
This selection comes from Jeannine Hall Gailey’s Unexplained Fevers, available from New Binary Press. Purchase your copy here!
Jeannine Hall Gailey is the Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington, and the author of Becoming the Villainess (Steel Toe Books, 2006) and She Returns to the Floating World (Kitsune Books, 2011) which was an Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal finalist in 2012. Her work has been featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, and in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in journals such as The Iowa Review, American Poetry Review and Prairie Schooner. She volunteers as an editorial consultant for Crab Creek Review and currently teaches part-time at the MFA program at National University. Her personal website is www.webbish6.com.
Darren C. Demaree is the author of three poetry collections, As We Refer to Our Bodies (2013, 8th House), Temporary Champions (2014, Main Street Rag), and Not For Art For Prayer (2015, 8th House). He is the recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. He is also a founding editor of Ovenbird Poetry and AltOhio. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Of the Forest by Linda Ferguson - September 22, 2023
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Of the Forest by Linda Ferguson - September 21, 2023
- The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Of the Forest by Linda Ferguson - September 20, 2023