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joanna: wood thorn fairy skin white roses hair like red she chose a body that was still small to help her remember who she really was she refused to walk danced everywhere on solid feet the men she found could not keep up staggered and fell behind so she waited skipping down the streets of the big dangerous citadel rearranging the silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids in rows in her apartment near the park of angels and rapists birthing books instead they sat at the table drinking tea from china cups with faces and feet they slept in the white four-poster bed with her they danced with her in the evenings before the fire and read her their stories at night later, she began to give birth to other things tiny tables and chairs made of twigs acorn beds with mossy coverlets miniature bouquets of violets in miniature baskets life-sized paper dolls with their souls painted on their torsos these reminded her of who she was and kept her happy for a while until a plane crashed through two towers and the terrorized city burst into tears of flame he had twinkly eyes and a gap between his teeth was a bartender downtown where bankers and publishers soiréed next door to the corpses of cows he poured her a drink and told her about his paintings he danced the whole dance with her and then another and another loved her soul, her voice, her breasts, her legs, her skin, her hair but by now under the roses her hair was silvery and her eggs mostly gone this did not mean a baby was not possible they had to feed it it cried just like a real one they called it boo and bobo and baby bee it needed to be suckled and nurtured read to played with loved until it grew and learned to dance when they lay together in rooms overlooking the park the sweetness nestled between them they remembered the secret green world they had come from and knew they could return to it as only elementals can they forgot for a moment that the city was or ever had been afire selene: the dress with the cigarette burns remember college did you once wear silk or satin slips with black boots? did you once smoke in the basement of a new haven punk club? did you ever burn your skirt? precisely just so little holes gaping prettily around the hem like mouths? now you like to curl up at home sober and barefoot making little girl dresses (sunflowers or ballerinas) the little girl you didn’t have but are is angry at daddy company where people lie and cheat and steal she wants to hide inside and sew all day in a room sea green with a sphinx machine she wants to make curtains long and floaty to hide her from the world but selene you will put on pearl gray suede platform heels strut in to daddy in the silver dress you made slashed with precision burned with grace how to become a priestess pain can destroy or create once you got in trouble for not wearing your jacket in the cold as if he were concerned for your well-being burning your fingers with his cigarette ash punching you in the jaw and raping you on the floor of the bathroom you had scrubbed for him now you have fairies scurrying in your garden drinking from the rhododendrons spirits hide in the jack-o’-lantern the solstice fir press themselves flat as dried petals in the books bring toadstools and feathers for your altar you have lilies and goddesses a candle full of secret oils and gems of your intention you would have used a stick but your friend gave you an athame sword for divination sharp enough to kill a father gretel finds her way gretel was abandoned by her mother so she never knew she was beautiful her eyes simultaneously green as oceans and red brown as earth her smile incandescent her body all lean pale muscle forever dancing you should have seen her legs her hands described the air sculptural and masterful at once as if the statue came to life to carve itself from stone but gretel thought herself small and freakish a goblin she went into the dark meadow scattering parts behind telling herself it was a way to get back though actually it was a form of slow suicide her eyes rolled off like marbles her teeth chattered in the grass her white hands and feet lay severed ancient artifacts fragments of a goddess that someone would then have to resurrect from their imagination and dreams oh gretel do not despair do not stuff the hole in your face where your pretty mouth once was with bewitched cake marzipan gumdrops taffy sugarplums butterscotch chocolate creams cherry tarts this will only make you forget for an hour then you will weep again and your stomach will hurt no witch wants to shove a child in her oven and eat it she would rather have a fertile womb to birth one kiss it and hug it and feed it wholesome foods witches are cursed and they are not so much different from you dear gretel wandering lost and afraid with your male self detached from you just as lost and your female self grown wicked and insatiable come here dear i have a thought for you why don’t you tell us your story dance it and put it on a stage with low hung swaying lights girls and boys dressed for a soirée in black and white satin tuxedos red lips and glowing eyes you do not have to rip off your pretty skin to show us your innards when you dance for us we know that swirling there is chaos and also stars collage she used to wear vintage dresses over her bikini and flip-flops ride to venice beach to read virginia on the sand she used to make collages with images of the virgin mary and roses she used to write poetry she went to a ballet high school and could have died for beauty not only from the eating disorder but from the words of the mean mistress she found her mother on the floor of the bathroom with a bottle of pills but still alive her roommate in college was raped and brutally murdered another friend died the same way at a different place and time her terror turned into worry about small things like the overgrown cuticle on her little toenail she married an artist and went to clubs with scrawls on the
