Among the Briars

by Marie Brennan

He’ll never make it past the tangling thorns:
his bones will bleach, untidy in their heap.
And once you’re dead, forgotten, no one mourns.

“They say that none’s won through,” the teller warns . . .
but were not hurdles made for men to leap?
He’ll never make it past the stabbing thorns.

The risk of death a truesteel hero scorns;
mere caution is for peasant-hearted sheep.
But once you’re dead, forgotten, no one mourns.

The next prince tries, his flesh in tatters torn —
he stumbles on, grit-strives his feet to keep —
he never makes it past the vicious thorns.

So crying, dying, of their valour shorn,
each man is by the cursed briars reaped.
And once you’re dead, forgotten, no one mourns.

Our vows to wake the princess all forsworn,
our ghosts penumbra to her endless sleep —
we never made it past the bloodstained thorns.
And now we’re dead, forgotten: no one mourns.

originally published in Rialto Books Review Vol. 27, April 2025