THE FAIRY POEMS

by Marcy Jarvis

NESTHÄKCHEN

There's a nest of blackened leaves
with two tiny eggs
in a wheat field at the forest's edge.

A girl picks them up.
The wind howls, it rages like so many
voices squirreling around.

One of the eggs falls out.

The girl brays at the wind.
She grows long ears and a tail
and  hugs the nest tight.

Shazam!  There is a break in the storm!
She finds a sweater to enter into --
someone buttons her in.

She buries herself deep down

under eiderdown; many comforters
weighing her down.
She falls into a deep sleep.

When she wakes up,
she opens a praline
and picks out the hazelnut with her nail.

HEXENHAUS

Since the season is upon us
and we could use the warmth,
we take out all the things we need
for baking.

Some are shapes
and some are spices --
some essentials, some
just nices.

Sweet for sugar mixed
with bitters --
gingery people some
call quitters.

But we know better --
they're just burnt, like all 
the pots and pans that don't heat up
right anymore.

Been left on the burner
or in the oven even, for too long --
can't sit squarely on the stove so let's
make cookies.

We don't have enough to bother sending.
Let's eat them all ourselves, remembering
how, last year, they were all
we had.

PRINCESS PHONE

There were seven calls; one for each dwarf --
one for each deadly sin.
Three from him and four from her
which leaves her on the losing end, doesn't it?

The first one (made by him, woke her out of a sound sleep)
was of skepticism on her part -- 
of fear on his.
Why fear? That's hard to say.
Perhaps because she started to cry -- 
perhaps because when she spoke his name, she did so in rage.

The second was a mixed bag.
He placed it and she was eager to pick it up.
It started out in fun and friendship
but went wrong somehow.
Too much laughter on his end --
too much confusion on hers,
and in the end it never really mattered.

The third she made --
because she was in need --
because she thought she was dying --
because she sought an explanation.
This third was a killer.
He died that day
and she moved on.

The fourth she made --
because she was in fear --
but she still cared about things.
This was the wonderful one, this call.
At least for her, it was.
(She no longer understands what, if anything, it was for him.)

The fifth he made.
It came months and months and months later,
and it came by way of a Japanese man -- how strange!
It was a survey of some sort. 
She was innocent in this call; she wouldn't realize until much later that
they had even spoken.
He must have just wanted to see if she was still alive.
Of course, she was.

The sixth she made.
For a million reasons: 
because she was safe again -- she had pulled through.
Because she was free again, she loved him still, she was wondering where he
was,
why he hadn't shown up now that she had been delivered of the crises.
Because she could be friends now, just friends if that was all he wanted
(that would have been okay too.)
Because she needed him,
because she needed to hear from him,
to know everything was alright, in whichever way that was.
But he murdered her this time, in cold blood.

The seventh she made, as a ghost.
Not because she cared anymore
or needed anything.
Just because.
She wanted to hear his voice.
Simple really.
It had all been very simple.

As fairy tales go.

STAR COIN GIRL

She had no true home
and nothing to her name.
Her parents were dead
so she wandered in her head
in a forest black as coal.

Giving away:
first her bread,
later her cap,
finally the very shirt
off her back.

Though modest and meek,
god's care she did seek,
because it was so dark
and she was naked there
(((without her shirt)))

And because she was all alone,
she thought no one could see her!
Though she had nothing more to give,
she stayed devout
and tried not to pout.

So the stars rained down,
klingeling coins of golden roses
into the fine linen
of her inner petticoat.
She opened wide

to catch the riches,
walked out of the woods
and onto a hilltop,
went into the Berghof
and bought a coffee.