It was sucker-punch simplicity:
heavy with her umbilical burden
she craved rampion
from the neighbour’s thorny garden.
Heavy with his responsibility
her expectation
he relented, fetched it.
The price they paid was cherub, newborn, coveted infant—
Rapunzel. Me.
Traded like a handful of beans.
Years I spent abandoned
in that lonely totem of loss
my braid a dead gold chain
the crone my only caregiver
bitterness lacing my blood.
But now
I am shorn
with children of my own
I imagine:
my mother’s keening
my father’s terror
their urge to save me
and I am reborn.