Tales I Tell My Children | Jenny Middleton

Fairy realms linger; longings whispered to a child.
Heads full of hoods and wolves howl lonely on a moor,
While the yellowed pages guide a brittle mossed path
Back to bedtimes beyond and freshly buoyant
With my own children’s chatter and clutter of stairs
Climbed. And I the teller now light incantations
Of darkness and of the hovering dreams
Freshly born tonight, ancient and again new
Brimming with technicolour misty murmurs
Laid through the years so we bite again apples
Snow White’s blood red lips knew and poison kissed.
And feel Rapunzel’s starry, salty tears stray
To cure princely eyes and cut our own computer
Devised reality to size.
Dark comforts offered word by voice in these tales
Ensconce us; wrapping pain and reality in duvets
And towel damp hair; all beauty filtered to our bleary
Beds and so it is the children sleep.