Pipe cleaner ponies poke
winsome hooves above the stone stage.
Conspiracies giggle from the nest of gniess
and tree limb. There is no doubt
that the fairies are involved with
the tricksy lighting and rustling stagecraft.
The vireos and warblers suspend song
and disbelief while ponies sprout wings
and Pegasus promenades airily in,
pastel feathers wafting a downbeat.
Wings in slings, Titania sings.
With all the charms Hecate brings,
Ponies still stuck in fairy rings.
No power can unknot the strings.
Sudden live action dash of a fuchsia tutu
in a maze of breathy headlong scarves.
He dances with skinny elegance,
wiggles his pipe cleaner wand
and lo! the ponies are airborne,
flocks of them spilling over the moss
with glowering fairies in invisible hot pursuit.
He sopranos triumph to the stunned hinterlands:
Aphrodite in her Nightie
I am the One who makes things rightie,
rippling the ancient golden wings of the summer air
with the might of his seven-year-old soaring.
Kate Falvey’s work has been published in many journals and anthologies, including previous issues of Deep Overstock; in a full-length collection, The Language of Little Girls (David Robert Books); and in two chapbooks, What the Sea Washes Up (Dancing Girl Press) and Morning Constitutional in Sunhat and Bolero (Green Fuse Poetic Arts). She co-founded (with Monique Ferrell) and for ten years edited the 2 Bridges Review, published through City Tech (City University of New York) where she teaches, and is an associate editor for the Bellevue Literary Review. As a young woman she worked in a slightly sketchy bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard, mostly because she liked to read on the job and try to match customers with their book choices.