Unthinkable Poem by Leo Briones

Unthinkable



On to the gray concrete floor my blood drips
to tiny mounds of wax that seal packages of death.

In dim brown envelopes, older than fossils,
locked like a chastity belt of expectation,
are three pressed purple roses and a faded sepia letter
written many, many years ago—

the letter tells a fairy tale of a peasant boy denied his princess’ love.
To mourn, he went about the kingdom and distributed
seven-shiny seeds of justice to the poor.
The seeds were planted. Then grew to fields of yellow-eyed wheat.

Finally, when the people ate their bread
and paid tribute their peasant boy—
they found the valor to storm the castle walls.
Then on the throne of manifest royalty
the people placed the king’s severed head.
Yet, when the boy called to her, his princess loved him no more.

Underneath
the dried roses and the fairy tale
hide many more wax-sealed envelopes.
They number nearly one hundred million fold—
each reveals its own account of the barbarity of love.

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