Goldilocks or Gretel?

Over at Poetry for Life, on Substack, we’re writing fairy tale poems, letting two by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer inspire us. She has one on Goldilocks and one on Gretel in her most excellent collection Naked for Tea.

The fairy tale character who called out to me was Snow White (because once I got to play her for one song in a community theater production of Into the Woods). I used Trommer’s “Gretel Explains Herself” as my guide.

Snow White Explains Herself

I knew what I was doing
the whole time—that tightrope
strung between men and apples,

it’s just that I wanted
true love’s taste on my tongue.

–Megan Willome

“Megan Willome has captured the essence of crow in this delightful children’s collection. Not only do the poems introduce the reader to the unusual habits and nature of this bird, but also different forms of poetry as well.”

—Michelle Ortega, poet and children’s speech pathologist