Fairy Grim

Jessica Ahrens

Fetch me a dear fiddle to

Hazel and Gretzel,

sweets master of the

gingerbread bore.

Morning’s corvus plays

tricks on the road, easing

foot off the brake before the

head jerks,

swerving ‘round scavengers for

roadkill rats—

sweet and raw because feathers lack

strength to grit sticks or smit stones to

raging candy wrappers.

Invasive cousin, brave squirrel

squanders metal candy corns in

car-concrete playground, when

just outside, they,

too, could be

bungee jumping from licorice roots,

honing bone to tear paper from

abandoned backs relieved

from the scale of

innocent ends.

I am an artist pulled with string tension and electronic repulsion to the brink of instability, though I argue that's where invention begins. All reactions start with a collision, whether artificially simulated or biological, including as you read this right now! Words are my favorite medium. I experiment, distill, boil, broil, and toil even when I am not in the lab.