Salem January V||

On Winter Street the old ice-damaged maple

With the fairy door at its base,

A warm picturesque entrance, maybe three inches tall,

Flanked by two tiny windows and a pebble pathway leading to it,

Is unceremoniously removed by city workers,

A corona of sawdust litters the sidewalk

Like a bloom of oil dripping from an old car on rain-slicked pavement.

It doesn’t take long to remove a hundred years of growth

Only a few hours and the chainsaws are gone.

The next day

The fairy door and windows are on a tree on E Street

Surrounded by a startlingly white fence.

That is the way it goes with fairies sometimes.

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What is there left to say about Marc Janssen? Maybe, his verse is scattered around the world in places like Pinyon, Orbis, Pure Slush, Cirque Journal, and Poetry Salzburg also in his book November Reconsidered. Janssen coordinates the Salem Poetry Project and keeps getting nominated for Oregon Poet Laurate.