Bluebeard

Issue one: poem by Jeana Jorgensen

Maybe
Bluebeard
wanted
his
wife
to
be
a
monster
just like him

to open the forbidden door
see the corpses
close the door
return the key

and secretly revel
in having
a fearsome spouse

to
match
her
own
soul.

‘Bluebeard’ by Gustave Doré, Perrault's Fairy Tales (1867).

Jeana Jorgensen earned her PhD in folklore from Indiana University. She researches gender and sexuality in fairy tales and fairy-tale retellings, folk narrative more generally, body art, dance, and feminist/queer theory. Her poetry has appeared at Strange Horizons, Liminality, Crow & Cross Keys, Glittership, and other venues. Read more at http://jeanajorgensen.com.