a LOTR what if?
He came to us rolling barrels of spring water / riding one of the rolling barrels himself / & three others tied into a rigged catamaran pulled by the largest rabbits we’ve ever seen / parading down the road whistling a tune that smelled of elderflower & honey the rich ripe sound of holy bell blossoms ringing in a new child of Middle Earth / at least how it used to be done when he found us the guardians of the great long wilderness but we saw in him a goodness we had long forgotten / The travelers we do see often offer no respect in return for the spoils they take from us / But now we had a guardian who could protect us from the horrors that fall down the mountains / for a while we did that happily & suffering was nearly forgotten thanks to the man who rides sleds pulled by our neighbors who can out run a firecracker shot off by hobbits / from one of his adventures he brought home an artifact we are forbidden to name that swirls knowledge into destruction if disturbed or touched by the easily corrupted / but she was not corruptible my daughter when she pulled from the orb a single memory from the dark lords themselves / our friend the wizard knew the source of the world’s rot was shifting which meant the time to recruit champions of the light was upon us! / But the darkness, my fellow travelers, listens even to those who shine the brightest & the orb retaliated & shot at my daughter our princess / a vision so painful that when it hit the wizard’s chest as he intercepted Radagast The Brown saw all the world’s pain at once & it curdled him into smithereens but luckily his heart was hit & not his mind / his mind remains controllable if my daughter can maintain the right level of concentration.
RJ Equality Ingram works as a used bookseller for Goodwill Industries of the Collumbia Willamette. Their first collection of poetry The Autobiography of Nancy Drew is forthcoming from White Stag Publishing in early 2024. RJ received their MFA in creative writing from Saint Mary’s College of California with concentrations in poetry & creative nonfiction. More work can be found in Phoebe Journal, Miniskirt Magazine & Citron Review among others. RJ’s cat Brenda lost a leg designing her memory palace.