| THE LORELEI SIGNAL |
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| Written by J. C. Runolfson / Artwork by Holly Eddy |
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| Blooded |
My grandmother fled her palace prison
to escape what was not love.
Her father dropped her from his boat
chopped off her fingers when she clung
to avoid the wrath of her god-groom.
He did not look back to see the fish
springing from her blood as she went under
a red current to enrich her husband’s realm.
The god looked
saw only the fish and not the wounds.
My blood has always fed me for a price
I’d rather pay than what is not love.
You never bled until we came.
You wept and called us cruel
who tried to show you power.
You would save your blood for love to spill
and you did not see what beat in our hearts
when your blood was thin as melting ice.
We loved
but you wanted the kiss, the wedding vows.
You ate ashes and spoke to rats
rather than accept our love.
I cut off my heel to evade lack of love
to make the prince recoil from the fish flopping at his feet
the red swell of my blood in the slipper.
He turned from me and my power
to my sister who shared the womb
where we swam together like seals.
The prince took
but we’d learned the trick of showing him wounds.
My sister took her toes off
to call his bluff of love.
So then he came for you, little vegetable girl
crouching at the roots of your mother tree
eyes dazzled by the glass of your slipper
the ice of your prison
the promise of what you took for love.
You went with the prince willingly
his sweet sap-bride
to let him wound you as he saw fit.
You plant flowers and he plants babies
and you call it love.
My grandmother’s fingers grew back
though they ached from time to time
and she shook her palace prison with the pain.
My heel, my sister’s toes, do not grow back
but we do not have to hobble after children
we do not cut ourselves on thorns to bring anyone roses.
We are free
to bleed and love as best we choose.
to escape what was not love.
Her father dropped her from his boat
chopped off her fingers when she clung
to avoid the wrath of her god-groom.
He did not look back to see the fish
springing from her blood as she went under
a red current to enrich her husband’s realm.
The god looked
saw only the fish and not the wounds.
My blood has always fed me for a price
I’d rather pay than what is not love.
You never bled until we came.
You wept and called us cruel
who tried to show you power.
You would save your blood for love to spill
and you did not see what beat in our hearts
when your blood was thin as melting ice.
We loved
but you wanted the kiss, the wedding vows.
You ate ashes and spoke to rats
rather than accept our love.
I cut off my heel to evade lack of love
to make the prince recoil from the fish flopping at his feet
the red swell of my blood in the slipper.
He turned from me and my power
to my sister who shared the womb
where we swam together like seals.
The prince took
but we’d learned the trick of showing him wounds.
My sister took her toes off
to call his bluff of love.
So then he came for you, little vegetable girl
crouching at the roots of your mother tree
eyes dazzled by the glass of your slipper
the ice of your prison
the promise of what you took for love.
You went with the prince willingly
his sweet sap-bride
to let him wound you as he saw fit.
You plant flowers and he plants babies
and you call it love.
My grandmother’s fingers grew back
though they ached from time to time
and she shook her palace prison with the pain.
My heel, my sister’s toes, do not grow back
but we do not have to hobble after children
we do not cut ourselves on thorns to bring anyone roses.
We are free
to bleed and love as best we choose.
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