breathe in the cold night air flickering with diamante,
smoking from my mouth in glittering plumes
frozen to the quick, once again my heels clicking
against the uneven asphalt on desolate streets..
seeing sound as colour, in split fragments
the voices of children laughing in a strange language
echoing off the dark houses and bare branches-
i come upon them playing and screaming
weaving in and out of an old car-
they are bizarre, mutant children,
their stocky inbred bodies
their mongoloid faces,
the clouds of white blond hair
encircling their circular heads
in gauzy coronas
the door flies open and out
comes their mother, the troglodyte
matriarch of the happy band
of hermetic circus freaks
roaring at her progeny
in a foreign tongue..
i pass this strange scene
convinced i am dreaming..
mme. mickey love appears from the shadows
and we stop in the cold for a spell,
she tells me that the monster family is polish,
that they’ve been there for years and years-
reclusive, and exceedingly peculiar..
i stand and gaze at the chinaberry tree,
golden and glowing against the pitch blue,
it looks like a painting, stark and luminous..
i stop in for tea, and spy madame stella-
the icelandic velvet-witch,
who stitches together such exquisite
silken wonders in her warehouse atelier..
she is the most beautiful crone i have ever seen.
i want to be like her when i grow ancient..
she told me about the fairies in iceland,
about how there are laws that protect their dwelling places,
from desecration and the vagaries of “civilization”
her voice is thick with hoar-frost and tangled skeins of
watered silk, her eyes are pale green shards..
she asks me if i can see them, and i tell her..
i am her little sister, she is great-aunt tanglewood,
one of our ilk, and soon she will be leaving..
more wonders still, walked in the door,
the very girl i needed most to talk to-
the illustrious mme. cole accompanied by a mme. rose,
and we discussed needful things for the doll-show
and they conveyed me home most chivalrously,
saving these brittle bones from the chill air..
today was one of dim never-awakening,
of pointless arguments and unhappy accidents
scathe my skin, and prickle my nerves..
the one aspect of my daylight hours
shot through with silver,
a group of maroon-robed tibetan monks,
some sage, some smiling as they pass me by..
i wish they would come in and let me
make them tea.

Huldre: These Icelandic fairies look like beautiful girls from the front,
but in back they may have tails or they may be one-sided.
They demonstrate that beauty is only one part of something.

In fact, in surveys, few Icelanders rule out the existence of elves, dwarfs, trolls, light-fairies, and especially “hidden folk,” gregarious, human-like creatures that purportedly dwell in rocks.

The road authority typically responds with sensitivity, routing roads around hallowed boulders or delaying construction long enough to give non-human constituents time to find new accommodations.