Princess

Princess

Princess

The boy who lives in the wrecked bus
down on the rocks, near the point
knows every yard of the long beach
that curves to the ruined castle
where the girl’s skeleton lies
behind a wall – a false wall
that only the boy’s discovered,
and only he knows the loose stones
that lift out to let him in,
so he can comb the long red hair
that’s still attached to the skull,
and he brings her what he’s found
that day on the beach, and calls her
what she was, Princess, even when
they walled her up in her room
and left her to die, alone
until the boy found her, and now
she’s visited every day, and lies
surrounded by buoys, lifejackets,
lobster-floats, two odd shoes
(one with a bony foot still in it),
half of an oar, a rubber dingy
and a driftwood sculpture the boy made
on the day he guessed was her birthday
because of the rainbow he saw
ending at the castle, as he left the bus
and ran the three miles to her,
and the rainbow went as he got there.