Considera girl who keeps slipping off,arms limp as old carrots,into the hypnotist's trance,into a spirit worldspeaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,as inward as a snail,learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,up like a salmon,struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,come here to Papa.
Sit on my knee.
I have kisses for the back of your neck.
A penny for your thoughts,
Princess.
I will hunt them like an emerald.
Come be my snookyand I will give you a root.
That kind of voyage,rank as a honeysuckle.
Oncea king had a christeningfor his daughter Briar Roseand because he had only twelve gold plateshe asked only twelve fairiesto the grand event.
The thirteenth fairy,her fingers as long and thing as straws,her eyes burnt by cigarettes,her uterus an empty teacup,arrived with an evil gift.
She made this prophecy:
The princess shall prick herselfon a spinning wheel in her fifteenth yearand then fall down dead.
Kaputt!
The court fell silent.
The king looked like Munch's
Fairies' prophecies,in times like those,held water.
However the twelfth fairyhad a certain kind of eraserand thus she mitigated the cursechanging that deathinto a hundred-year sleep.
The king ordered every spinning wheelexterminated and exorcised.
Briar Rose grew to be a goddessand each night the kingbit the hem of her gownto keep her safe.
He fastened the moon upwith a safety pinto give her perpetual
He forced every male in the courtto scour his tongue with Bab-olest they poison the air she dwelt in.
Thus she dwelt in his odor.
Rank as honeysuckle.
On her fifteenth birthdayshe pricked her fingeron a charred spinning wheeland the clocks stopped.
Yes indeed.
She went to sleep.
The king and queen went to sleep,the courtiers, the flies on the wall.
The fire in the hearth grew stilland the roast meat stopped crackling.
The trees turned into metaland the dog became china.
They all lay in a trance,each a catatonicstuck in a time machine.
Even the frogs were zombies.
Only a bunch of briar roses grewforming a great wall of tacksaround the castle.
Many princestried to get through the bramblesfor they had heard much of Briar Rosebut they had not scoured their tonguesso they were held by the thornsand thus were crucified.
In due timea hundred years passedand a prince got through.
The briars parted as if for Mosesand the prince found the tableau intact.
He kissed Briar Roseand she woke up crying:
Daddy!
Daddy!
Presto!
She's out of prison!
She married the princeand all went wellexcept for the fear —the fear of sleep.
Briar Rosewas an insomniac…She could not napor lie in sleepwithout the court chemistmixing her some knock-out dropsand never in the prince's presence.
If if is to come, she said,sleep must take me unawareswhile I am laughing or dancingso that I do not know that brutal placewhere I lie down with cattle prods,the hole in my cheek open.
Further,
I must not dreamfor when I do I see the table setand a faltering crone at my place,her eyes burnt by cigarettesas she eats betrayal like a slice of meat.
I must not sleepfor while I'm asleep I'm ninetyand think I'm dying.
Death rattles in my throatlike a marble.
I wear tubes like earrings.
I lie as still as a bar of iron.
You can stick a needlethrough my kneecap and I won't flinch.
I'm all shot up with Novocain.
This trance girlis yours to do with.
You could lay her in a grave,an awful package,and shovel dirt on her faceand she'd never call back:
Hello there!
But if you kissed her on the mouthher eyes would spring openand she'd call out:
Daddy!
Daddy!
Presto!
She's out of prison.
There was a theft.
That much I am told.
I was abandoned.
That much I know.
I was forced backward.
I was forced forward.
I was passed hand to handlike a bowl of fruit.
Each night I am nailed into placeand forget who I am.
Daddy?
That's another kind of prison.
It's not the prince at all,but my fatherdrunkeningly bends over my bed,circling the abyss like a shark,my father thick upon melike some sleeping jellyfish.
What voyage is this, little girl?
This coming out of prison?
God help —this life after death?
