Poem by

ALLISON BLEVINS + JOSHUA DAVIS

In the Story We’d Like to Tell Our Children,

the witch leaves an offering of honey

and brown bread. Then she unbolts the door

and rides a horse colored like molasses.

When she recites the secret word, kept like

pocket stones, brambles faint—foppish boys—

and the witch enters the stony

palace, admires the frozen fountain.

At the top of the tower, the sleeper

looks as though she has been living underwater.

On the ground, the skulls of princes surround her,

chalk the witch’s steps to silence.

The sleeper’s kiss, the witch knows,

waits soft and easy as a thief, as fire,

as the only true tale no one can remember.