Rumpelstiltskin
When I told him I planned to marry
the hunchback Moroccan,
he jumped up and down,
his face turned pink—
like Rumpelstiltskin, I thought
I guessed his name,
would forever be free
of his cursed legacy.
I expected him
to crumple by his desk,
from heart attack or stroke,
and wasn’t moved
to pity his age.
Decades past his death,
I begin to receive,
through memory,
the love he tried, that day,
red-faced and screaming,
to offer his teenage daughter.
***
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