Recasting
by Tricia McCallum
Disney Princesses don’t want to get married nowadays.
They know their way around a bow and arrow,
Eat out a lot.
They’re skeptical about stepsisters,
They prefer
Princes that consult
Rather than control.
Ones that climb the stairs
And not their hair.
They choose
Uber over horse-drawn,
Waking to a smartphone
Rather than a strangers’ kiss.
Hedge funds over credit unions,
Loose comfortable clothing.
They don’t
Always feel like singing in public,
Wait well,
Take no for an answer,
Play dumb.
They won’t
Whistle while they work,
Put up, sweep up, or and shut up,
Swoon and expect to be caught,
Falter and expect to be saved.
They want equal billing,
Signing authority,
A credible back story.
They want last names.
“Poetry is my church. My refuge. Without it I wouldn’t have navigated my life nearly as well.”
Tricia McCallum, a Glasgow-born Canadian, is a Huffington Post Blogger, a 2016 Pushcart Prize nominee, and the author of two poetry books, The Music of Leaving (Demeter Press 2014) and Nothing Gold Can Stay: A Mother and Father Remembered (2011).
She has won the poetry competition at goodreads.com a total of three times through the past three years, along with an honorable mention.
McCallum says she publishes both online and off, wherever she can find good homes. “My approach is simple. I tell stories in my poems and write the poems I want to read,” she says.
Her latest poetry manuscript entitled Icarus Also Flew was a finalist in the Marsh Hawk Press Book Contest in 2017.
She can be found online here, and often:
www.triciamccallum.com
facebook.com/tricia.mccallum.9
twitter.com/triciamccallum1