Poem: "Juana's Palace"

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)