Fairy Tale Review, The Green Issue
(Fall 2006)

The Green Issue includes new work by:

Brian Baldi, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Jedediah Berry, Paula Bohince, Wendy Brenner, Ayse Papatya Bucak, Rikki Ducornet, Johannes Goransson, Ann Jaderlund, Daniel Khalastchi, Stacey Levine, Cate Marvin, Joyelle McSweeney, Kat Meads, Lydia Millet, Andrew Morgan,Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Stacey Richter, Arthur Rimbaud, Carmen Giminez Smith, Donna Tartt

Ayse Papatya Bucak
Once There Was, Once There Wasn't

In a time when camels were beasts and genie were jinn, there was a girl always in love.  She loved the men she saw (those were few) and the men she didn’t (those were many), but never did she love one man above the others.  It should be mentioned, as it was known throughout the land, that this girl was the sultan’s daughter.

Also in that time, when genies were jinn and camels were beasts, there was a boy.  And this boy was never in love.  Never—and perhaps you were expecting this—until he met the sultan’s daughter.  Now to be a sultan’s son is to be a sultan.  But to be a sultan’s daughter, that is to be given everything and yet have nothing.

This boy was no son of a sultan; he was instead a son of a fishmonger.  And when this son of a fishmonger met this daughter of a sultan—do not ask how this happened, we are speaking of love—they each loved for the first time. 

When the girl loved the boy he knew what it was to be a fish set free into the rushing straits of the Bosporus after being caught in the crowded net of a fishmonger.  And when the boy loved the girl, she knew what it was to be five flowers lifted on a single breath. 

And as for the rest of the story, well, it is not as good, and it is not happy, and it is not love.  But once it was.

Ann Jaderlund
Translated by Johannes Goransson

Behind a moist spring in a desolate forest lay the red rose. With dried and hair-pipe-fine god veins. In the grave garden beneath the tall trees. The trunks were large as animal limbs and overgrown by tender green stalks. O once you wanted to grab the tender stalk. And hold it in your black ribbon hand. We were supposed to fall in the powerful moss. Or into the severe light that is always swelling inside. Now I cut in the fair flesh cut up your fair fair heart. Beauty exists after all only in the heart of the beholder.

Bakom en fuktig källa i en ödslig skog låg den röda rosen. Med torkade och hårrörsfina gudskärl. I gravgården under de höga träden. Stammarna var kraftiga som djurländer och övervuxna av späda gröna stjälkar. O du ville en gång gripa den späda stjälken. Och hålla den i din svarta risphand. Vi skulle falla i den kraftiga mossan. Eller i det stränga ljus som där inne alltid sväller. Nu skär jag i det vackra köttet upp ditt vackra vackra hjärta. Skönheten finns ju när allt kommer omkring endast i betraktarens hjärta.

Andrew Morgan
From "Fairly Taleish"
 

I.

And we all wait in the crescent to see
and identify the double-decap—
what it means, where it sheds its opinion
and becomes something blue, something
moving or at least in need of retelling.
We’re to search for an explanation,
a tale inside a perfect unwinding,
a needle cut in two, reflected in a mirror
and left to whisper the clues
to each Private’s maiden.
I can be clear in only that the escape is unnecessary:
what we do does nothing to haunt
each bedroom and each vibrating crib.
Are you afraid tonight will glow?
Dainty when you hold your arm near the axe?
I’m miniscule for now, have only a small part
while you remember telling the horse
all your secrets and then setting out
to recap his personal story,
the one left in the field with the poisoned oats.
I’m not watching out for you, or him
and that’s the point—
we can only be what we want to tell
each locked door of each singing key.