They are ordinary, in the beginning, 
born of blood and bone and aching need. 
And then, perhaps, by fate or chance, 
the broken shards of a faerie dance 
will pierce the deep and tender flesh 
of their fragile, human hearts. 

Or, it might be that the rustling air 
twines leaves of laurel through their hair, 
while water murmurs, gurgles, flows 
past mounds of earth below their feet. 
Or fire may flame and flicker bright 
through the shadows of their dreamless nights, 
bringing them rhymes and rhythms from 
between,  
betwixt,  
beneath. 

So, when life slices skin in two 
on the jagged edge of mortal hue, 
the poets’ blood will spill in swirling streams 
of shimmering, silver ink.  
And, whether by accident or design, 
their lines will cross both space and time 
to soothe our pulsing ache away 
with the beat of feathered wings. 

[Kelly Jarvis (she/her) works as the Contributing Editor for The Fairy Tale Magazine. Her poetry has been featured or is forthcoming in Eternal Haunted Summer, Blue Heron Review, Mermaids Monthly, Forget Me Not Press, A Moon of One’s Own and Corvid Queen, and her short fiction has appeared in The Chamber Magazine and the World Weaver Press Anthology Mothers of Enchantment: New Tales of Fairy Godmothers. She teaches writing and literature at Central Connecticut State University.]