Folklore

by Marina Carreira

Avó taught us monsters crawled out of woods
on rainy nights, climbed roofs, ready to fall 
from blackened chimneys unless we set a pot 
of boiling water to burn them alive as they 
came down. I believed this until I saw them 
in the open, trading woods for Wall Street,
nightclubs and the world wide web. None
ever ruined unless their demons crept out 
from the caves of their own hearts, and
certainly never hunched over anything but 
the devoured. I’ve walked miles and miles 
and miles away from that hard earth littered 
with pine needles and bottles, to a plane of 
endless juniper, sea spreading itself beneath. 
On this side of recovery, Snow White runs off 
with the maid. Little Mermaid screams herself 
back in existence. The witch feeds Hansel 
and Gretel her own limbs, nary a part to waste. 
In the Church of Make-Believe, a Holy Mother 
with blade in mouth, our fists, candle-lit.
Such crazy talk, women with wolves 
for husbands say. Folklore: 
that you walk out of the forest 
the same way you walk in.

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Marina Carreira (she/they) is a queer Luso-American poet artist from Newark, NJ. She is the author of Desgracada (Bottlecap Press, 2023), Tanto Tanto (Cavankerry Press, 2022), Save the Bathwater (Get Fresh Books, 2018), and I Sing To That Bird Knowing It Won’t Sing Back (Finishing Line Press, 2017). She has exhibited her art at the Newark Museum, Morris Museum, ArtFront Galleries, Monmouth University Center for the Arts, among others. Find her on Instagram at @savethebathewater.

Photo by Erhan Dayı on Pexels.com

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