Cathrin Hagey
Grimm Brothers Ltd.
Ball gown, robin’s egg
blue with silver stars,
patch-girl dress,
matching head
scarf, willow
broom, silver
hands, scarlet
cloak, rusty kisses,
shoulder-clasping bluebird,
fresh sex-laced apple,
ripe peach, wolf’s
forked tongue, plump
oozing frog,
risen loaves,
vengeful doves,
one lying mirror,
small feet.
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Author’s Comments: The minutiae of fairy tales is my business as the author of the column “What’s in a Fairy Tale?” for Luna Station Quarterly. But this particular poem is inspired by a collection of handmade Barbie Doll clothes given to me as a child, which included outfits for Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Dorothy of Kansas and Oz. Soon after the gift was given, I was assaulted while wearing a fantasy “princess” outfit. My lifelong obsession with fairy tales has at least something to do with the juxtaposition of these events. Fairy tales are models of remembering. Lists impose order.
Cathrin Hagey holds a degree in mathematics, is an excessive list maker, and currently writes and edits for Luna Station Quarterly. She has been longlisted twice for the CBC Nonfiction Prize and has had poetry published in Prairie Fire and Cahoots Magazine.
Editor’s Note: This is a nicely enjambed list poem. Image is abstract expressionism (pxhere)
