The Price of Magic
My mother plays fairy—
tooth, to be precise.
We discuss the going rate for magic:
She splits her $20 bill,
burning a quarter of it on the lottery—
her dream— the simple kind
of having enough for her and hers
to erase the worry
that someday there might be
a day she feels her bones,
or her children’s, through their skin.
(Do we dream
what we are trained to?
Turn fairyland into a lottery
build in systems of commodifying
not just the body,
but growth & joy & wonder?)
The magic of another $5
rests under my sister’s pillow tonight,
her childish skull almost empty
of the particular childhood horror
of baby teeth.
(& I wonder,
How long before she is a maker of dreams too?
Her own always going unfulfilled.
How long before she plays fairy,
the magic of pretend siphoned away
by bills & debts & obligations?)
The magic of the last $10 leftover
waits for some potential grandchild,
accounting for the sure inflation of dreams
—should we last that long
(And yet, I know
that even in the wreckage,
of a civilization once built
on teeth and coins, now crumbled
there will be those that play fairy,
that take gruesome & dying & painful things,
and make them magic.)
A Legacy of Gasoline
I remember being water
flowing through the interstitial tissue
of dinosaurs
laying wet under their tongues
moving between them and prehistoric pools
being taken from fruit and fern.
I remember time passing
laying there under the sun,
shriveling, drying up, being covered
by peat, having the weight of the world
press down upon me
until I descended
until I was no longer water
but something else.
I remember being awakened
by myself, no longer,
bubbles flowing, coaxing me up
again, to be made
into new shapes
both fluid and not
myself, bringing me
back into the light
if not back
into me.
About the author: Lynne Sargent is a writer, aerialist, and holds a Ph.D in Applied Philosophy. They are the poetry editor at Utopia Science Fiction magazine. Their work has been nominated for Rhysling, Elgin, and Aurora Awards, and has appeared in venues such as Augur Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Daily Science Fiction. Their first collection, A Refuge of Tales is out now from Renaissance Press.