A Weed on The Curb

 Sharing this weekend with The Sunday Muse, #229 .  Why do you think the chapel is empty? All the deer passed through and pulled the leaves from the windows, glass and gold and leading.  Follow them if you want shade Stay if you want to cleanse the self in this light, a remaining fall of dust and sun and sulfur. Remain in this cell of honey and umber. c. sandlin, 2022

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #228 , The Fashionable Twenties.  A sycamore fairy sits crosslegged in the road Dragons swim toward smooth hills above the storms Vines embrace the telephone poles  Someone washed the blue skies and she knows  It's time to dare the salty foam It's time to wade through the eternal fields' folds And gather golden apples for home.  Hoping this finds you with space to daydream and a good book in which to wander. Working on turning last week's prompt into a longer piece, as I found myself intrigued by the idea of tea in the garden as combat. Social situations are not my forte. As it's still Spider September, there will be a chihuahua-sized jumping spider that is none too happy about anything but hunting squirrels (that's for you, Mom).  -- Chrissa

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse #227 .  I was sick that week,  muffled and sore-throated. We tore those pages  out of Mom's British magazines  in a frenzy of making up  a game of fairy chess: tile floors full of supermodels, expensive dogs, perfume bottles, gardens, and real royalty. No jumping, no war.  Just tense tea times, lost gardens and wise dogs leading to the Ball. Would you find your way with a tux-suited man or a tartan-collared dog?  I don't remember the rules, the music, the endless tissues... just Mom handing over the scissors and watching me carve pictures into fairytale games. -- Chrissa

  Sharing with The Sunday Muse #126 . Swan maiden? First it was goose girl, child of the village who tumbles getting water, lost in the dark forest hanging over the gate, Born under a sign exploding over castle Built a hundred years ago And now? The swans are returning Midnight-black and friendly as pigeons! So I'm the swan maiden,  the candle in the mine, the peasantry's reparative marriage. A flock of black swans follows me Even in eider-white,  Even when I'm barely taller Than a heraldic wingspan. Go find your fixes elsewhere! Build a girl from tinker's bits Or from the ripped aprons Or from the forest's leaves! I'll march this flock back to the stars Before we fill the castle's pillows With dreaming, darkwing down. Okay. It's been a weird week. So far, I've had nightmares about having to shower in WalMart, my brother turning me into the cops for a joke so many times that the cops decided to go ahead and arrest me, and various other stressful situ