Field Notes From A Fairy

[to Arthur Rackham, William Shakespeare, still…]

you can’t make yourself small enough
to suit them
said the good fairy new to retirement
mulling over her temporary life

of filing files and

answering multiple phones and selling flimsy merchandise that fell apart long before first washings under moonlight..

nothing will ever be enough
though you make them pictures of gold
or silver
even embossed with stars
no one’s even found yet…

they’ll call the Agency
right in front of you:
“next time, send me a real secretary”
“you’re lucky to get a real person,”

I  said.  And meant it, charmingly.
soothingly, even…*

still, one must get by

you’ll punch in when

what you wish instead
Is punching something else

or glittering all the way back far under the hills to the Dollhouse left
in the rain by the Metro train
where the merry kinfolk live in mulberry gossamer near the
Bookstore of All First Folios-
where it seemed like Christmas every day

(They never called it just “the holidays”)

instead, you twinkle harder, feather-light,
blowing the strangers bubbles
on their turf as you’ve been taught and exactly the way they spell it out for you in the secretarial science books-
even when they’re peering down
to see you’re hardly there
and booming like stage- craft thunder, the Drama Club kind-

where is she?

I’m  right here I chime on tip-toe,

in my best lilac, your best prop, and
typing thrice the speed of light even when you don’t say a.s.a.p.
balancing appointments on
my rose-crowned head

fresh back from fetching you the
Golden Fleece or gooseberry cold medicine or ruby-collated whatnots triple- sided-
not forgetting the corned beef brisket
piled on rye-and your potato salad with the skins left on!

I haven’t  eaten a thing, but can a Muppet be hungry?
so I’ll pack all the leftovers for you,
shall I, hmm?

they’ll hand you the silly Box that means you’re leaving
just as the Christmas Party twinkling lights come on and you’re busy collecting the oyster shells from the caterers-

but you’re in disgrace and off to collect your things, now you bad, bad fairy- trundling the  Giant-sized cat-litter carton behind you- following the tumbrels
in horrid wet mittens (that’s later)

trying not to cry and picking up your perfect
demitasse from the kitchenette
they’d never drink from fearing the fairyland cooties on them- eyeing you each  break-time whenever the ravioli explodes in the microwave…as if you cast a spell on it and didn’t even clean up after yourself (you hate ravioli: they know it’s not yours)

you’re ripping your tiny poems off the bulletin board as you fly by (the ones they didn’t get to yet in the Lobby near the elevators where the Guests can see)
and clutching your spare bright polka dot galoshes
while they  keep looking at their watches grimmer far than Grimm and standing guard oh my, how threatening

can you be at 3 inches high…

with irregular socks They’d never be seen in,  especially when
drop-kicking you out in the rain just before the last bus

splatters your best lilac and disintegrates the cardboard  as ice pellets quickly form in the clouds above the little gingerbread office park with the over-pruned trees…
you’ll hear, again, their monkey-money organ grinder tune on the drizzly breeze that

they need someone with a

Professional demeanor…someone, more flexible…”
(professional What? sardonically I think
go make a bouncing cartwheel on the moon-
that would be flexible- betcha yah can’t spell “insubordination”
want some help? I flitter –

but They don’t hear and that’s how I know, once more, that God is merciful.

we have to let you go they bray
year after numbing year having no other script to follow night shift or day even on the eighth day beyond the Creation when you’re still working and there is no rest  and they’re in the back room eating cordon bleu and ignoring your Last tri-lingual page about the SWAT teams out front…and the customers fainting in the aisles from the lack of air conditioning the whole summer the manager claims

can only be adjusted from the main office in another state where the penguins live. (try telling that to the next of kin).

yet…

God rest ye unmerry gentlemen and ladies…if we fairies have offended…but Puck is not “less productive” whatever  you made up for the exit interview- pond scummy scum scum

oops! forgot to pack them the tiramisu…may

Christ in His beauty shield you child
from petty tyrannies like these and the idiot lack of song-

and so, goodnight, goodnight-
and a tiramisu, "Yum"...

mary angela douglas 16 november 2011