Once Upon a Time Ghazal
Denise Duhamel & Julie Marie Wade
Snow White and Cinderella didn't have time
for feminism. They thought they’d made it bigtime
like their pal Aurora, who snoozed all night and day.
An unnamed princess tossed and turned at bedtime;
then, her thin skin secured a wealthy suitor. Go figure!
Once married, what did those gals do to pass the time?
Red Cap thought the woodsman looked like the Brawny
paper towel guy, mopping up messes in the nick of time.
Even Goldilocks thought the youngest bear an eligible
bachelor. She slid under his covers at bedtime
and cooed, “Did the ‘rents set you up with a trust fund?”
The Beast gave Belle a ring she twisted three times,
but when it left a green smear, she bolted. Beauty isn't
a blessing. Bluebeard’s wives’ wounds weren’t healed by time,
and Rapunzel's head always ached from princes scaling her braid.
The Little Mermaid tweeted #metoo, #timesup, #time
from her limpet phone, but it was hard to get good Wi-Fi
under the sea. She and Ursula belonged to a maritime
co-op for aqua-ladies looking to manage their own clams.
Without cliterference, they prioritized their sexy time.
Denise Duhamel and Julie Marie Wade are the authors of The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose, published by Noctuary Press in 2019. Their collaborative poems and essays have appeared in many literary journals, including Arts & Letters, The Bellingham Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Common, Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, Green Mountains Review, The Louisville Review, Nimrod, No Tokens, PoemMemoirStory, Prairie Schooner, Quarter After Eight, So to Speak, Story Quarterly, and Tupelo Quarterly. Together they were awarded the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize from Prairie Schooner for their co-written lyric essay, “13 Superstitions.” Duhamel and Wade both teach in the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami and are at work on a new project titled In Lieu of Flowers: A Quarantine Collaboration.