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'A Story Wet As Tears' by Marge Piercy
Remember the princess who kissed the frog
So he became a prince? At first they danced
all weekend, toasted each other in the morning
with coffee, with champagne at night
and always with kisses. Perhaps it was
in bed after the first year had ground
around she noticed he had become cold
with her. She had to sleep
with heating pad and down comforter.
His manner grew increasingly chilly
and damp when she entered a room.
He spent his time in water sports,
hydroponics, working on his insect
collection.
Then in the third year
when she said to him one day, my dearest,
are you taking your vitamins daily,
you look quite green, he leaped
away from her.
Finally on their
fifth anniversary she confronted him:
'My precious don't you love me any
more?' He replied, 'Rivet, Rivet.'
Though courtship turns frogs into princes,
marriage turns them quietly back.
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'Yet Another Story'
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a
bright, self-assured, independent princess
happened upon a frog by the shores of a pond,
in a meadow near her castle; where she sat
considering ecological matters.
The frog hopped into the princess's
lap. Then he said in his throaty voice,
'Oh, good kind miss, hear my request. Once
I was a handsome prince, 'til a horrid witch
cast the most horrid spell on me. However, if
you grant the tiny kiss I want, it will set me
free, and turn me back into the real young prince
I am. Oh, go on, hurry: answer me! Why, first my
dear heart, we can marry. Then I think we'd retire
to set up home in my castle with my aged mother.
Here you'd have my ring, be my wife, give birth to
my children, cook... and clean my dirty dishes.
We'd be happy ever after.'
That night, as she dined on frog-legs in a rather
rich, quite dry, white wine sauce, she chuckled to
herself
'I don't think so.'
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