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Table of Contents

  Introduction
  1. Mapping the Ways
  2. Spinning the Tales
  3. Voices & Viewpoints
  4. Spell Binding & Spell Breaking
  5. Magical Objects
  6. Desire & Its Discontents
  7. The Grimm Sisterhood
  8. Variations & Updates
  9. Ever After, Or a Few Years Later
  10. Living the Tales
  About the Authors
  Acknowledgments
  Selected Bibliography
  Index of Poems by Tale
  Index of Authors and Titles
  About the Editors


M A R T H A    C A R L S O N - B R A D L E Y

The Maiden Without Hands

And the father takes
his daughter's hand
firmly in his own,

reeking as he wields the ax
of cows, sweat,
the knuckles that trap her
cracked and red.

She will not turn her eyes away,

demands that her severed arms
be strapped to her back,
young woman on a country road

who walks towards strangers.


"The Maiden Without Hands" first appeared in Marlboro Review, no.6, Summer/Fall 1998, © 1998 by Martha Carlson-Bradley. Poem used by permission of the author.
It is a violation of copyright law to distribute or reproduce this poem without express permission of the author.