She was riding unicorns again
through a magical fairy world,
laying limp beside the dumpster bin
in an alley where litter swirled.
Princess of otherworldly delight,
she waved to the fairies, so flashy and fleet,
while tomcats faced off to fight
over a tabby crooning in heat.
She was a changeling, she ofttimes thought,
coming home for the first time;
a creature whose place had somehow bought
another’s role in a more magical clime.
Fanciful fairies twirled all around her
like a brilliant firework bloom
as the need for another hit bound her
with its pixie euphoria, its bewitching doom.
At last she saw the wicked queen
in a pothole puddle of rainwater,
like a mirror horrific and obscene
showing to her a wayward daughter.
Aching, she saw the wicked queen
reflected in her burnt-out spoon,
the face pockmarked and pale and lean
like a waning midsummer moon.
Tangleroot And Tressknot 