Wealth, ultimate wealth, is the privilege of extremes.
In a princess’s natural state, blue-painted footmen sigh as
they turn the pages of her harpsichord music, birds echo her love songs, tongued
flowers beckon princes her way.
She wears more fabric than believed possible in textiles spun
into the sky, the moon, the sun.
When costumed as poor, a princess’s fairy godmother rouges
her cheeks with soot, children chant melodies about her filth, villagers cover
their noses from the stench and speculated mange.
She washes pig troughs for a hag who spits frogs.
Lovesick over these extremes, a prince must marry the maiden
with the singularly slender finger, the grotesque wretch draped in the rotting
skins of a donkey that used to shit diamonds.
Still, as wealth courts wealth, a king must marry his
daughter.
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