it does not happen.

Stranger:

it does not happen No, it does not.

Thorn Rose:

But it can happen—

Stranger:

But it can happen— —yes, yes, it can.

Thorn Rose:

The longer we talk, the colder

our soup gets, so let’s break off here

and together go to dinner.

May I please have your arm?

Everyone:

Thus the affair came to an end

pleasantly and in wedded bliss.

* A chambermaid.

† Appetite comes with the eating.

Cinderella

CINDERELLA

A garden behind a house.

Cinderella:

I will not cry so that they scream

at me for crying. My crying,

not their screaming, is what’s awful.

When their hate doesn’t make me cry,

the hate is good and sweet like cake.

It would be a jealous black cloud

blotting out the sun if I cried.

No, if I cried, I’d feel the hate

so hard it wouldn’t be content

with mere tears. It would take my life,

a monster like that would eat me

dead. Its highly poisonous nature

is so lovely to me, the blithe

creature who never cries, who knows

no tears save only those of joy,

of only mindless happiness.

There is an imp inside my head

and he knows nothing of sadness.

Whenever they make me cry, there

cries this jolly sense inside me.

When they hate me, my joy loves them

that cannot even hate the hate.

When they come for me blind with rage,

with poison arrows of their wrath,

I smile like so. My presence shines

like the sun to theirs. Its bright ray

may not touch them, but in a flash

it will dazzle their wicked hearts.

And I, since I’m always occupied,

I really have no time for crying,

only laughter! Work laughs. Hands laugh.

They do. This soul laughs with a joy,

with what should win over the souls

of others no matter how stubborn.

Come heart, laugh my troubles away.

She wants to go. Her sister, in the window above.

First Sister:

That thing acts as if she were worth

looking at, standing there stock-still,

like a pillar in the sunlight,

splendor to the eye only she sees.

Get your lazy hide to the kitchen.

Do you no longer remember

your scant responsibilities?

Cinderella:

I’m going already, calm yourself.

Some reverie overwhelmed me

as I was on my way just now.

I was thinking of how pretty

you are, your darling sister too,

how you wear such pretty faces,

how it makes me more envious.

Forgive me and let me humbly

take my leave now.

She exits.

First Sister:

What a silly stupid dreamer.

We’re way too soft on her. The fake

secretly laughs us off, pulling

her sad face when we surprise her

laughing at us behind our backs.

From now on, I’ll give her the whip

for being so lazy on the sly.

That apron wraps her up in such

a dusty, black cloud. Then she dreams,