I snuck into Juana’s palace
to give her a new pair of slippers for her birthday
Juana isn’t allowed out of her palace –
she’s been deemed mad,
a deranged melancholic who clings to corpses and coffins
and mourns for them too long,
unnaturally
Surely the touch of madness
Still I gave Juana a new pair of slippers
in the chance the rugs of her palace rot away
before her son –
the king –
visits her next
Lest she be forced to feel the coarse dust
covering cold, unswept gems under her feet
and feel what her son feels
when he treads on his mother’s dreams
Juana’s servants are not to speak to her –
an order of the king –
But they spoke to me, of course,
as I slinked away from her palace:
“Have you given His Majesty a pair of slippers also?”
“By God, it ain’t his birthday!”
Juana’s palace holds a legal queen,
legal only –
She signs no treaties, she knights no soldiers
though the war is rightfully hers
Juana’s palace is full of nuns,
full of nurses,
full of silence all are obliged to keep
Juana’s palace is no palace at all, you could say
But the madness of my queen is much too royal,
my queen’s melancholy is much too regal
for country cottages
or luxury voyages
where she’d be tossed to common beaches
not fit for her ship to wreck
My queen’s madness is given by Divine Right
and no asylum should keep it secret
(Originally appeared in The Viridian Door, 2022)
