Landing in the Sahara

Tumbling down the rabbit hole
she was prepared
this time.
Waiting to touch
the earth under another sky.
Her sheepskin boots
made a soft landing.
Sand had replaced black mud,
for she wasn't in Wonderland.

She looked out for those
perfect white pair of pointed ears,
hoping to start off on a new adventure.
She dangled a carrot
and called out his name.
But neither did he scamper
towards her, nor did he
send word with the mad hatter.

So she gathered herself,
and observed her surroundings.
Golden particles of dust
gathered around her feet,
as she saw the silhouette
of a lonely camel in the distance.

There were no cakes or potions
labeled 'eat me' or 'drink me'
Nor tiny little doors that could
open up to new gardens.
So without any warning
she whined and wailed.
Crying her eyes out
in the middle of the desert.

She waddled her way through
the wetness, mulch and mud
and continued moving forward
without realizing that
had she turned back even once,
Alice would find
an undiscovered oasis
made by a pool
of her new-formed tears.


*For Magpie Tales

Swan Song

Clinging to the contours of her calf muscles,
the fine thread-work of motherly innocence
dipped its silk, and licked the surface
of those still grey waters.

The voices in her head had made their peace,
when the argument met with a quiet scream.
The blood on her hands had curdled
from the blood of her womb.
Squinting to salvage the last tear in her eye,
she ambled stoically to the middle of the lake.
and saw the rejected duckling
murmur softly in the glistening black waters.

The broad-laced wide-eyed bodice
sprawled around and braced her frame.
Pivoting on one foot, she swiveled
to bury the remains of her seed under her sole.
Swirling on ripples of unwashable guilt,
she tried her best to spiral downwards,
and wished to drain away
through that wide gaping manhole.

But the black swan sat there cursed
to a cold world sans imagination,
for never again would she find herself
tumbling down that rabbit hole.





* For 3WW

**Photo Credit: Actor Lisa Dwan in Beside the Sea captured by the lens of Graeme Robertson