Thanks to everyone's excellent input, here's the first revision of Briar Rose:

Briar Rose

Once when I was a child
I pricked my finger
on that mythical spinning wheel.

That’s the story I told myself,
that I was just sleeping here
and someday a prince would come
and kiss me awake.

I knew better, of course.
That shape bending over my bed
was no prince.

I was pricked, all right,
but there was no fairy godmother
to save me from that curse.
No christening banquet.
No gifts.
That secret kiss in the night
was not my savior.

Now, long years later,
maybe a hundred or so,
here I am in my armor of thorns.
I can’t bear the smell of roses
of honeysuckle
sweet and rancid like my father’s breath,
the reek of the satisfied monster.

I live awake,now,
dreading night,
dreading sleep,
that kiss in the darkness,
the prick.
The wound.
My blood on the sheets
red
as a briar rose.