Song for my Daughter

Because my father pushed me down
………………..the path alone
Because my bridegroom marked the trail
………………..with ash
Because a wolf in the woods
………………..acts not from contempt
………………..but takes what’s his
Because every mouth satisfies
………………..a body’s hunger
Because when asked, I will say
………………..it was a dream, my love
………………..a tale I heard
Because the crone hushed and hid me
………………..while tending her pot
………………..stewed marrow they’d suckled since birth
Because she was once also a girl
………………..but hands can form habits
………………..and recipes spells
………………..and good mothers feed even their raw, wicked ones
Because with man as my savior
………………..I was safest alone
Because the bird in the cage
………………..sang words he had learned
………………..from the previous girl
Because leashed as she was
………………..she never said “no”
Because her finger, severed
………………..continued to sing, and I wanted to use
………………..its song as my proof
Because a woman’s word
………………..can never be proof
Because I had no wounds on my skin
………………..when I stumbled home
Because my father slept sound
………………..on a pillowcase filled
………………..with dowry gold
………………..and I would not wake him
………………..from this particular dream
Because you’ve heard this before, where boys will be
………………..beasts and girls will be
………………..cloth, torn to ribbons
………………..tied tightly in knots or in bows

Song for my Son

after “Hans my Hedgehog”

I submerged my hands in the frozen pond,
If I could hold myself prone on smoldering coals,
I could mold your father’s half prayer into one half of a son.

Hans my Hedgehog, Hans my Hoped For, Hans One Half of my Heart.

Hunch-clutched in my womb, how I hated
your hungers, your hiccups, your twisting,
your quills bristling into scouring bouquets.

Hans my Hedgehog, Hans my Unhandsome, Hans Heir of Half Horseshoes and Hurt.

How I harbored you! My hull
hole-riddled, my sail ripped to ribbons,
An addled sieve sailing you on.

Hans my Hedgehog, Hans my Howling, Hans One Half of my Home.

Poppy bright polka dots adorned my insides.
My inter-uterine stigmata, your hot crown
of thorns. Of a man wished and of woman borne.

Hans my Hedgehog, Hans my Hazard, Hans My Only Son.

Both poems were first published in Fairy Tale Review. “Song for my Daughter” appeared in the chapbook Made and Unmade (Madhouse Press 2018) and is reprinted here with permission of the press.

Listen to the author reading her poems here and here, and read more about the author and her work in these links:

Another poem by Emily Pérez inspired by the “Hans My Hedgehog” fairy tale was recently published here.

Review in The Rumpus

Micro-review and interview, The Friday Influence

Interview for The Poetry Foundation Podcast

Emily Pérez is the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants and the author of House of Sugar, House of Stone and the chapbooks Made and Unmade and Backyard Migration Route. House of Sugar, House of Stone is available for order hereand on Amazon. A CantoMundo and Ledbury Emerging Critics fellow, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including Cosmonauts Avenue, Copper Nickel, SWWIM, and Fairy Tale Review. She teaches English and Gender Studies in Denver where she lives with her husband and sons. You can find more of her work here.

Poet’s Note:

The familiar form of a fairy tale jumpstarts a poem as the reader enters with a host of associations, possibly even a plot. Meanwhile, the tale’s flat characters can be infused with a range of emotions and motives. I found “Hansel and Gretel” a useful tool for examining the many ways family members abandon one another in my book House of Sugar, House of Stone.

Certain tales haunt me. Since childhood, I was fascinated that the bride in “The Robber Bridegroom” could only reveal the groom’s crimes by telling about “a dream” she had. Even while accusing him, she has to appease him. I was also interested in the ways seeming caretakers can be complicit. If you have not read “Hans My Hedgehog,” you have homework for tonight. This story has so much fantastic material, including a hedgehog-man who plays bagpipes and rides a rooster. I use it here to examine the often complex and contradictory journey of longing for and then bearing children.