Ever After

By Arlene Ang

What the Grimm brothers
failed to add was
after inscribing
ever after

the Prince came knocking
on their door to confess
his quest for
the thirteenth fairy,

how only the enchanted spindle
that pricked fingers
towards a hundred-year nap
could unthread damnation.

Both brothers remained
unhelpfully silent.
The King would have demanded
their heads if truth came out

that Sleeping Beauty
spun welts on skin with bare hands,
had a flair for brandishing
briar whips in bed.

They were also happily
out of paper and ink.