Two Darkling Poems by December Lace

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The woods behind the Sunday place
        Are straight from a Hawthorne tale
               With sharp air and twisted twigs
                      Brambles snagging on loose words
                            Dropped from my cathartic pen
                                  Those woods are usually kind to those like me

With dollhouse minds, exposed for strangers to play with 
	    And relatives to rearrange 
                        I go willingly, born of a since-burned bloodline
				   Shifting a stitched bag brimming with borrowed books on 1693,
					      For a special moon is due
							    And my fingers know how to read woodfruit

Rapunzel’s Bones

I dug up Rapunzel’s bones the other day to plant them for my aunt.
I’d like to pretend that I’m a witch or a chemist or a gardener,
but I’m just a desperate girl
wanting her protector’s bare scalp to sprout storybook locks,
so I enchanted my hands with blisters and dug until I smelled radishes.
The tip of the spade hit vertebrae and the clink of metal on bone unleashed rivers
from the belly of a spoiled girl.

I planted Rapunzel’s marrow and teeth underneath the shade of a rotten oak
by an old shed beside scattered bits of broken glass.
I’ll water the patch and caress the dirt and
mumble made up prayers of makeshift religion
until I get my way.
My knuckles are raw, my palms are ripped, and my nails are splintered
when I lay over the earth, dreaming of golden strands.