I have loved the tale of The Twelve Dancing Princesses for as long as I can remember. I grew up on Shelly Duvall’s Fairy Tale Theater. This episode was a favorite, one my mother recorded from TV, and I watched it numerous times on VHS. I’m not sure there was anything better than the thought of having a trap door in my bedroom that led to an enchanted place all my own where I could escape each night. For a long time I was simultaneously annoyed and lulled by the ending where they are caught and the eldest daughter marries the man who figures out their secret. It dawned on me, quite recently, that if they’d simply gone barefoot, their father never would have known they were leaving their room at night…
Those Girls Who Go Dancing
Those girls who go dancing
In the night—
The twelve sisters who get caught
Shredding their slippers to naught,
Foregoing sleep, sneaking away
To an enchanted place.
Ferried across a midnight lake
In boats as slim as the flutes
Playing a lively tune,
On an island of silver trees
And jeweled leaves,
Outshining the moon,
They dance the whole night through.
Their father, he worries.
He can’t control these errant girls
Who dare to dance,
Who ignore his rants,
Who answer a beat deep in their hearts.
He cannot see that despite
This nightly rebellion,
By dawn they are back,
Laced tight in their dresses,
Ready to do as daddy requests,
Asking for new shoes to replace the clues
Of where they’ve been,
As if to say,
We can’t help ourselves.
However much they’d rather stay
In a faery wood, swept away
By twinkling lights and a lilac breeze,
The freedom to claim their nights
Is forfeit to a greater rite.
The eldest sister will marry the man,
The one her father locks in their chamber,
Tasked to stalk, to steal after,
And reveal their beloved secret.
We forgive him this treachery,
The death of their reverie,
Because happy endings, we are sure,
Come when girls secure
The love of a man.
But these sisters are not the only ones
Who go dancing
In the night.
You’ve heard the whispers of envy,
Disguised as derision,
Describing those with a different vision,
Who don’t care what boys think
And even more shocking
Don’t care what girls say.
Legs like tongues of fire,
They wear no gowns, abandon fleek,
Chic in the shape of each rounded cheek,
They shake their bodies, slick with sweat,
Not bound to any predetermined silhouette.
They dance in groves, on sand, cement,
Whatever stage their minds invent.
There is no way to reign them in,
Magic runs within their veins,
They’re invisible to eyes
That look only for chains.
Wherever they tread, enchantment flows
For they shed their slippers long ago,
Leaving no tattered remains,
No proof, no stains,
Except the soil on their feet
Which they wash away
Before they crawl beneath the sheet.
By morning all you’ll see
Is hair tousled by pillow,
A brow damp from dream,
Though it’s hard to suppress the gleam
In the eyes
Of the girls who go dancing
In the night.