Image: Unsplash, downloaded (https://unsplash.com/photos/FL6rma2jePU) 7.2.2022.
Ragged Angel
I've retrieved from golden tissue paper
the tree-topper I first knew in childhood.
Never a distant prehistory but always close,
with its mythologies and night terrors,
and fantastical fires dancing on the
Mystic River. So, too, this angel --
from a specialty store, her arms tiny
white lights, a halo of glory.
Now, tatters of her gown fall,
and we are both searching
for the light of memory.
A Little Girl Runs to the Wolves
Her parents were sleeping their
long sleep, their hibernation of demons,
utterances of fairy tales and splashes
of vodka and blue forests.
It's her own sister who pronounces
in the middle of math class --
"You will not see her anymore."
Red Riding Hood, enviable in
a crimson clock, has fled
in wooden clogs, drawn
to the musk of gray fur, and
low weeping to the crust of the moon.
Unbroken tracks in the snow, they fall,
as if falling through time, a pool of scarlet
in the cloak that covers them all.
About the Author: Meg Smith is a writer, journalist, dancer and events producer living in Lowell, Mass., USA. Her poetry and fiction have recently appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, The Cafe Review, Sirens Call, Dark Moon Digest, Acropolis Journal, and many more.
She is author of five poetry books and a short fiction collection, The Plague Confessor. She welcomes visits to megsmithwriter.com.
