Bluebeard’s Dollhouse

Bluebeard’s Dollhouse

by Christianne Goodwin

I remember the feeling of sudden cold, the stone walls surrounding me. Locked doors stood at odd angles and hooked lances criss-crossed the corridor. Recognizing the place, I knew better than to try the doors. I began searching for an exit.
At the end of an unlit passage I slipped through an open grate out into a walled garden, overgrown and warm with late sun.
A few paces ahead of me sat a pink dollhouse. Next to the dollhouse was Prince Bluebeard himself, wearing a floppy hat, reclining in a lounge chair. He appeared to be napping.
I approached the dollhouse. Getting down on all fours, I peered into the rooms: I could see no blood or lake of tears, only tiny furniture. Every detail was perfect, down to the miniature forks and knives (for eating, only).
I began opening the windows and doors. The garden breeze rustled the tiny lace curtains. A pile of miniature letters were swept off the desk. One window closed shut, rattling the dollhouse. Bluebeard snorted awake.
I jumped to my feet. “Forgive me, prince, I was…well, I was…”
He looked at me calmly, crossing his hands over his sizable belly.
“Sir, may I ask—is this dollhouse yours?
Bluebeard nodded and smiled.
I crouched down and inspected it again. No locked doors, no past wives.
“How is this possible?”
The prince laughed a little to himself. He nodded up at the castle. Turning towards it, I found it was fading before our eyes, already transparent in places.
“That was my house before therapy, and this” he said, pointing at the dollhouse “is what became of it after.”
I stood up and looked back and forth, from castle to dollhouse. “My prince, congratulations! I say—that’s quite the accomplishment. You, you don’t think so?”
Bluebeard sighed “Yes, yes, my therapist said the same" he sighed, looking down at the dollhouse, "but tell me, how am I supposed to live in it?"

 

Christianne Goodwin is a poet from the American Midwest. Oracle Smoke Machine, her art-and-poetry collaboration with painter Stephen Proski, is out with Staircase Books (2023). Her work appears in Consequence, Peripheries, and Poetry Ireland Review, among others, and translations of her work by Princes Beáta and Stefano Bottero are published by SzifOnline and Nuovi Argomenti. She is a poetry reader for The Midwest Review, the recipient of an Academy of American Poets University Prize, and a Robert Pinsky Global Fellow.