perhappened mag
issue 6: FAIRYTALE
spinning wheels
are so out of style
PRESTON SMITH
After “ Belladonna ” by Ava Max
We’ll build one last snowman
before winter’s dance beat peters
out, shadows elongated in shortened
night, a sandman at bay
until you watch our snowman melt
and I flee to my childhood garden.
I find things are growing here now but I
only remember that body temps drop
when drinking and that curses grow, too.
I wade through watered flowerbeds
like the gentlest of fairies, pick perfect
parcels of poison which seem to cry
as their stems snap out of spring’s new soil.
I’ll tell him I steeped tea, that it’s spiked
and I’ll tell him I’m sorry it took me
so long to water the flowers.
We’ll build one last snowman
before winter’s dance beat peters
out, shadows elongated in shortened
night, a sandman at bay
until you watch our snowman melt
and I flee to my childhood garden.
I find things are growing here now but I
only remember that body temps drop
when drinking and that curses grow, too.
I wade through watered flowerbeds
like the gentlest of fairies, pick perfect
parcels of poison which seem to cry
as their stems snap out of spring’s new soil.
I’ll tell him I steeped tea, that it’s spiked
and I’ll tell him I’m sorry it took me
so long to water the flowers.
Preston Smith (he/him) is an MA candidate in literature and an editor for Periwinkle Literary Journal, and his debut chapbook Red Rover, Red Lover released in 2020. He is on Twitter (and Instagram!) @psm_writes. His poems appear in Black Bough Poetry, Nightingale & Sparrow, and Pink Plastic House, among others.