Poisoned Apples (10 page)

Assassin

O
nce the Red Delicious clears Snow White's

epiglottis, the wicked queen moves on

to make sure a dozen dancing princesses

do-si-do no more,

to help Sleeping Beauty

find eternal rest,

to plant the foot that fits the slipper

six feet under.

Afternoons are endless meetings with the huntsman

to follow up on rumors: yes,

Gretel is becoming quite a looker,

Bo Peep has lost her baby fat,

Goldilocks has better extensions,

the third little pig was just voted

Cosmo
's Sexiest Ham.

Back home in front of
The Late, Late Show
,

mixing poisons for tomorrow, she wonders

how long she can maintain this pace.

Is the Fairest's work never done?

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View from the Balcony

W
hen my sleeve slips past

the black-and-blue patchwork of skin

during my practiced royal wave,

the crowd cheers even louder,

for here's the proof!

I am the kingdom's mottled sweetheart

who can feel a single pea like a fist

thrust through the mountain of eiderdown.

The prince hammers a kiss onto my cheek.

I look down into the shadows of the courtyard

and try to spot all the others, so many

real princesses

standing stiffly on the merciless cobblestones.

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Pink Champagne

T
hat night the Platte River prowled outside our tent,

my friends and I flopped inside, a nest of babies,

not quite furless and blind, but barely

fifteen years old. We kept the music low enough

not to raise parental hackles, loud enough to drown

out the pop of the cork and then the shrieks as bubbles

swelled over the banks of the bottle, foamed down

our Dixie Cups the way rapids lathered the rocks

we later floated toward on our backs.

For once we were naked not for the sake of some

guys, but to feel the current swirling between our legs,

lifting up all those parts we had never shown

to the sun and which now glowed brighter

than every awestruck star

and one hell of an envious moon.

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CHRISTINE HEPPERMANN
has been a reviewer for the
New York Times
, the
Horn Book
, and many other publications. She lives in New York. www.christineheppermann.com

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I
f you find the dividing line between fairy tales and reality, let me know. In my mind, the two run together, even though the intersections aren't always obvious. The girl sitting quietly in class or waiting for the bus or roaming the mall doesn't want anyone to know, or doesn't know how to tell anyone, that she is locked in a tower. Maybe she's a prisoner of a story she's heard all her life—that fairest means best, or that bruises prove she is worthy of love.

But here's a great thing about stories: they can be retold.

Traditionally, fairy tales appear on the page with male names attached. The Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault get credit for writing them down. Yet as scholars have shown, the original tellers were, in all likelihood, women. And those women were sneaky. They understood that including fantastical elements in their tales—golden eggs, singing harps, talking frogs—worked to mask a deeper purpose. According to folklorist Marina Warner, it made the stories look on the surface like “a mere bubble of nonsense” within which it was possible to “utter harsh truths, to say what you dare” about the state of women's lives. Because they were
just
stories, right? Harmless little fantasies?

I have never been particularly brave. But when I put on the mask of fairy tales and started writing these poems, I felt powerful. I felt free to poke around inside stories that scared me or saddened me or made me mad. The more I explored the darkness, the more I realized that the forest only looks impenetrable.

My advice? Retell your own stories. Keep pushing your way through the trees, and I promise that, eventually, you will come to a clearing. And then you can dance.

—Christine Heppermann, New York

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POISONED
APPLES

“Over and over again, Christine Heppermann's poems reveal the worm in the messages young women get about love, sex, food, and bodies. These poems cast a harrowing but irresistible disenchantment.”

—Sara Zarr, author of National Book Award finalist
Story of a Girl

“Heppermann's collection of teen angst is like a velvet bag full of gems to be poured out into the palm, held up to the light, studied, and saved to be brought out again and again on fitting occasions.”

—Karen Hesse, author of Newbery Medal–winning
Out of the Dust

“The fairy tale path, dirt and cobblestone, weaves through a dark wood. The fast shiny freeway of now zooms past where the woods used to be. Sometimes the path and the freeway intersect. Sometimes they are the same road. Christine Heppermann's amazing poems come from each of these places. They are moving, mind-bending, sad, and ambivalent poems. But they are also really funny and, in the end, triumphant.”

—Lynne Rae Perkins, author of Newbery Medal–winning
Criss Cross

“This powerful and provocative exploration of body image, media, and love broke my heart and made me gasp aloud with its relentless truth. Dark, unsettling, and altogether brilliant.”

—Rae Carson, author of
New York Times
–bestselling
The Girl of Fire and Thorns

“Anyone can read these wonderful poems, but I know women and girls especially will open
Poisoned Apples
and immediately tell their friends, show their friends, loan the book out, get it back, read it again and again until the cover falls off.”

—Ron Koertge, author of the acclaimed
Stoner & Spaz

“Christine Heppermann writes with a brilliant wizard's pen. If redemption comes to us in stunning, sidelong ways, via metaphor, parallel thinking, reshaped tales with new characters who might be us, this is a book that will save. Not only you, but so many people you know. Take a look.”

—Naomi Shihab Nye, author of National Book Award finalist
19 Varieties of Gazelle

“
Poisoned Apples
is simply phenomenal. Heppermann's honest voice grabs the reader with urgency. This collection is a champion for teens and adults who see our world as an advertisement for perfection that doesn't exist. Readers will want to read these poems aloud over and over again.”