The Handless Maiden In Verse - Part 5

Monthly poems serializing a classic tale in verse...

Jun 06, 2025

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for stepping into this little corner of the poetry world. :)

Welcome to the fifth installment of The Handless Maiden in Verse! If you missed Parts 1-4, not to worry! They’re linked here:

Re-sharing my blurb from the past few months, too:

I also know a lot is going on right now & I know you feel its residue, too. So I wanted to share some newsletters that help me stay informed (but grounded) amid the slush of social media: The On Canada Project (for other fantastic Substacks, you can see which ones I read & recommend here), The 1440, Reimagined, Collective Rest, Al Jazeera, Press Progress, The Breach, and SAPIENS.

I hope you enjoy this month’s materials. :)

Take gentle, tender care & speak soon.

Gratefully,

1) A castle tower, to the left, sits in front of a small forest at blue hour on a full moon. 2) A castle-like building featuring spires & ornate window decorations in sandstone & salmon colours. 3) At night, a lit red candle on a desk overlooking a cityscape through a window. 4) A stone pathway to a castle, lined with large trees, brush, and white flowers. — Photos taken & shared by the wonderful Lida Pavlova (@lidapavlova_magic on Instagram).

The Handless Maiden - Part 5

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Deeply on purpose, Retha had hoisted the heavy
wall mirror, its foggy glass like the first pour of milk into tea, 
over her childhood balcony. The final death in a trilogy 
of youth, stepmothers, and their inverted reflections. 

This was the evening she’d returned 
on horseback, to her castle, to collect her 
things after years away. 

This was the very same evening she watched Eva’s aching
gait creep through the apple orchard. She watched Eva fall 
to her knees and bend to bite the bruised, 
tumbled sweetness. Retha winced at Eva’s first taste,
expecting, of course, the toxin. But she’d forgotten

she was safe now. And though there was a resemblance
Retha found in everyone, 
this woman had no hands...

Retha and Eva both caught the castle gardener’s lamp
behind the stippled window of his stone home, surrounded
by a voluptuous pumpkin and squash patch. 
It was so dark, this night, 
that the light found the chimney, rising from it
among the smoke of burning cinnamon and rosemary.

Where the gardener’s vegetables met the edge
of the forest, Eva slipped behind a large pumpkin.
Turning her back to the forest’s mesh, she pulled
the vines across her body like blankets 
and slept. Retha closed her balcony windows,
and although she’d planned to do her deeds
and deftly descend home, she decided to stay 
the night. She stood with nothing but frosted panes 
between her body and the unforgiving 

eve of something.

The mirror shards, not quite far enough
beneath her, played a game of shadows 
with reflected moon. 

***

"Good morning,” a nearly whispered voice slipped
through the marbled cracks in the vines 
with overcast sunlight. Eva startled, chilled

under the shade, nearly choking herself 
in vines. Sleepily, she watched toughened hands
grip the living ropes. Oh, how long it had been 
since she saw human hands. So long; now
they frightened her as if the ghosts of spiders.

“Please, let me help you out.” The soft voice again.

“See, I told you there was a stowaway.” A gruff voice. 

“No, no. Just the need we try to meet by hiding.
Did you recognize Retha this morning?
Had she not transformed?"

“Retha grew from child to woman. I did not
recognize her, no, but I know this 
being, who has missed woman entirely
and reverted, backward, from child to animal."

“Is it truly up to us to determine a measure,
or direction, or scale of necessary change? Of time?
You know what, precisely? What you’re afraid of?
Perhaps in better words: where you’ve been before?

"She might be dangerous."

“Were you?"

The gardener, a muscular man
cocooned in a blooming brown beard,
crossed his arms and harrumphed.  

“Besides, I believe there’s a kindness
born from intimacy with the more-than-human
beating our shared flesh and bone, don’t you?"

The gardener lifted his chin, narrowed
his eyes, and nodded once in muffled agreement
with his charming, blackberry-haired king. 

“It’s taken us a few days to find your spot,"
offered the kind voice. Eva saw its body now 
as it added, “If we’d never been so good, once,
at hiding ourselves, we’d never have found you."

A young king. And a gardener. And another
woman, walking towards them through the thick
Earth. Eva saw her emerald boots first, grounded in soil clouds.

“Please, don’t be afraid.” The king said.
"We aren’t. And we won’t hurt you."

Eva opened her mouth to reply, but nothing formed
beyond a wheeze of breeze, and then a sigh.
She’d adopted the language of the trees. 

The king smiled, as if arriving somewhere
warm after a long, cold journey. 

Retha reached the tender group,
and without addressing anyone
but Eva, spoke, as if reciting
a well-lived truth:

"She has immortal spirit now.
They may ask her for time 
to remember how to sift for human
along a bilingual spine."

Eva looked up at the woman,
about her age, with cropped black hair
around golden eyes, gently creased
and browned like bread

almost risen. In Retha’s eyes, loss was yeast,
rounding, as she said, “I will stay 
again. I will show you how.” 

“There’s plenty of space. And we’re quiet, except
for today.” The king offered, gently laughing.

But then he frowned. With admiration
he reminded, remembered, "Cousin, dear Retha, 
the Queen we feared is long dead. I only safe-keep
the crown; it's still yours, you know?"

Retha knelt to Eva, and with her 
thumbs, wiped old tears
turned to salt-crusted stone from her 
swollen eyes, so used 
to dilating and navigating unknowns.

She stood, held her breath, blinked,
and from her pocket, offered Eva
a perfectly ripe, red apple. 

“No, I don’t think it is."

To Be Continued...