Elizabeth Fevyer

Fairytale, in reverse

The praying mantis decapitates her lover
after finishing with him,
biting into his head, like a juicy apple.
 
His final gift of sustenance,
and disappearance.
A fairytale, in reverse.
 
I want to keep your head, though. 
The best head
(he always gave the best head).
 
And here’s the problem:
Unlike the mantis, pronging
away from the verdant remains of her love,
I don’t know what to do with you.

My grey hairs

are like dandelions:
To pluck one is to give seed
to a whole garden –
If only I were the kind of woman
to lie in meadows.
 
Instead, I bribe my follicles;
I take a monthly dip
in the anaphylactic pool.
My inky halo always seems convinced,
until the shock of metal two weeks later.
 
They say it grows even after you die.
They say you’ll be past caring then.
The first signs of surrender
appearing, like a sliver of light
from under a closed door. 

Elizabeth Fevyer lives with her children in Cardiff, Wales. She has been writing poems since she was a small girl and has had her writing published by One Sentence Poems. She writes mostly in the dead of night, when her children are asleep.