THEY WERE IN LOVE: THUS, IT WAS A FAIRY TALE UNTIL IT WASN’T

In one version, the bride finds herself
in hell for dancing.
In another, the viper left
by a jealous suitor
is responsible for the same outcome.

Either way, I imagine her gown
heavy with mud,
smashed wings where a sash ought to be.

Once, another writer placed his hand
on my thigh while I was driving.
Then, in the club, up my blouse
& my husband said I encouraged
his type, apologize.

I didn’t need to tell him
a story about falling.

The groom was forbidden
from looking back at his bride
but he looked anyway.

Theodora Ziolkowski is the author of On the Rocks, winner of a 2018 Next Generation Indie Book Award, and Mother Tongues, winner of The Cupboard’s 2015 Contest. A Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets nominee, her work has appeared in Glimmer Train, The Writer's Chronicle, Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. Recently, she served as Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast and Fiction Editor for Big Fiction. She is the recipient of the Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing and is currently pursuing her PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston.