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Epilogue
There was no marriage
In the Kingdom that year.
The court was quite aghast -
Turned him down flat, they said.
The Prince was left
Looking quite the fool,
and the King, enraged,
Castrated seven cuckolds in a row -
They whispered it was a warning to his son.
The Queen, unasked, advised
That had he wanted it that much
He should just have raped the whore.
While she smiled gently,
And gentler yet, refused -
But thanked him
For returning her slipper.
The Director's Cut
The dust was inches thick
Upon the cracked leather of her face -
She was not what he expected,
But then this whole bloody quest was a disgrace.
So now he knelt upon one knee
And bending down - he closed his eyes -
Placed a single kiss upon her cheek.
The silence was unbroken as before -
The corpse remained as dead.
What a way to learn
That women do not have eternity
To squander while they wait
For heroes who arrive one hundred years too late.
Eabhan Ní Shúileabháin has had her work published in Incognito, The Sunday Tribune, Poetry Ireland Review and Issue Two of The Stinging Fly. A member of the Dublin Writers' Workshop, she was one of twelve poets to feature in Poetry Ireland's Introductions series 2000.
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