Emily Hainsworth

This is not a teaser…and anyway it’s officially not Tuesday anymore.

I wrote this poem almost two years ago. It’s about the guy who um, initially inspired the *love interest* in MIND FIRE, which I had begun around the same time. Writing the poem got me excited to finish the novel, ~*mah first novel*~, so…it’s definitely not the greatest, but it is special.

~*~

The Summertime Prince

For twenty years, he’s carried that staff

selling his pretzels, with a bow, and a laugh.

Wooing young maids in his Renaissance style

light kiss on the fingers, a dazzling smile.

But mums guard your daughters the rest of the year

he’s a shape-shifting dragon, or so I do hear

Come winter, a pirate’s ship he will sail,

down to New Orleans, into port with a hail!

To tend bar for his brethren of fallen souls

writers, actors, politicians, he’ll wear all their clothes

Even a mendicant mask, he dons with a wince

he’s no stranger to it, this summertime prince.

And when the last snow melts from the gray New York skies,

“Tis time for the Festival!” home again he will fly

To wield staff anew, and break a young girl’s heart

in the deep Sterling woods, romance is his art.

Those blue eyes will settle on full ruby lips,

nothing taken for granted, curving bust, swaying hips.

And with a “Huzzah!” grasps his naïve young lass

In beautiful talons, she’s his prey, oh alas.