The Diamond Princess, Cara McKee

Tell me, fair bride, of all your life

and all that did betide you,

I love to hear your gentle voice

and be the one beside you.

The Princess sadly bowed her head,

she held her tongue and power,

it was not her the fine Prince loved

but her diamonds and flowers.

She had been lost and all alone

since she’d run from her mother

but had not taken that great risk

for the greed of another.

Now speak, dear wife, of all that’s good,

of things best not forgotten.

But goodness lay within her heart,

her Prince’s heart was rotten.

So sadly then the Princess stood

and reached her hand out sweetly:

My voice is just for you, husband,

I gift to you completely.

She led him then unto their bed

and sprinkled it with flowers,

she whispered diamonds in his ear,

she whispered them for hours.

The sunrise painted diamonds red

heaped up beside the Princess

who went to sleep with petaled lips

and prayers for God’s forgiveness.

And underneath the diamonds there

the Prince forever slept.

He could not breathe the shining jewels

his wife’s sad whispers wept.

Born in Yorkshire, Cara L McKee now lives in Largs on the West Coast of Scotland with her young family and two kittens. She has recently had poems published in Product Magazine, Peacock Journal, and 404 Ink. She writes a column for Scotland 4 Kids and blogs at caralmckee.blogspot.co.uk. Cara loves reading (currently Beauty by Robin McKinley), is working on a modern retelling of the Tam Linn fairy tale. She wishes she was better at drawing.

Art by Amanda Bergloff.