human again for months now,

I still marvel at my left hand:

the golden ring that sits on my delicate finger

my knuckles and veins, freckles and fingernails

I long to hold her uncorseted waist again 

and I wonder

if she fell for me because I was a monster

and could offer her nothing

other than my company

sometimes, when she doesn’t come to bed

I find her in the velvet armchair in the library

staring, dreamy

out the color-stained window 

at the tiny town that raised her 

does she feel like she’s still trapped;

courtly life the new form of mundanity?

it was easy to fall in love

when all we had was us

no suitors or formalities nagging

then I transformed

into the man my father wanted me to be 

I became the nameless prince

I brush my lips against her cheek

she looks away from the window and smiles

a soft curve on her pink-rose mouth

she promises she’ll join me soon

I walk back down the shadowed hallway

knowing that she won’t

and I wonder

if the tears she shed when I was freed of my curse

were those of grief

for the life we had months ago

before I was human again