Thursday 5 May 2022

Reduction Root

by Nick Gisburne



The tiniest of blemishes. A spot.
But no, no, no, no, no! It will not do!
She mixes up a potion, piping hot,
The promise of perfection, tried and true.
Her vanity, the folly of the Fey,
Destroys her better judgement with a brick.
‘Reduction root. Dab lightly, in the day.’
She slathers it, at midnight, with a stick.
A modicum of tightness in the skin
Is all to be expected, so she thinks,
But, as the magic fizzes further in,
Her fairy form, already skinny, shrinks.
    No bigger than the bumble of a bee,
    She drowns, in just a drop of tulip tea.