Cinderella’s daughter
would have married a poor boy
from the adjoining town.
He seemed to be kind, she thought.
What he said was always meaningful:
It had newness and a slant
that was more compatible with these modern times
than all the fancy clothes,
than the fast and flashy cars
of the genetic washouts
who were her usual courtiers.
In any case she was sure
that this was someone who would make her happy;
so she dreamed
of living in a small cottage with him
by the university.
They would take courses;
they would learn the wherewithal
with which to transform
their pumpkin period piece
of a kingdom
into a modern state.
Her friends laughed,
but her father found it reprehensible,
a form of glassy-eyed idealism he would not tolerate.
So he made plans immediately
to have her sent to a proper boarding school
for young ladies.
Then she dreamed of running off with him.
They would find a place in Greenwich Village,
a small brown-stone perhaps,
and live like hippies.
But someone told, and her mother forbade it.
That is out of the question, she said.
You are a princess. Your father
is a king. And life
cannot be treated like a fairy tale.
You, above all others, must go
by the rules.
So that was the end of the episode.