Spring

The key is under his mother's pillow.
The prince unlocks the cage, follows the wild man
to the forest: he can never return home.
The man sets him to guard a spring full of
golden snakes and fishes: nothing must break
that crystal film. Instinctively, the boy
bathes his bruised finger: draws it out gold…
He leans to gaze through mirrored eyes: ripples
stir at the touch of his now glittering hair.
Sent from the forest — "to learn what it means
to be poor' — the youth must forge himself anew
from dream and painful circumstance and hope.