An Elf-Man with Cold Hands

Many people yearn to be enchanted;

The disenchanted world’s dispiriting.

Terms such as hollow, pointless, meaningless

Turn up often. Oh, for the numinous,

The magical, the meaningful, the world

Possessed of purposeful narrative arcs.

But as Richard Suggs, writing on changelings,

Noted recently, for the disabled

And more peculiar children in the lands

That believed in fairies leaving changelings,

Here, as in every magical culture

The world over, it was never a good

Idea to stand out. He then produces

Numerous cases of tortured children

Believed to be fairy changelings, often

To the point of death. Enchanted stories,

Stories people tell and genuinely

Believe, come with harm and terror attached.

Those enchantments derive from those people,

Who are people. Who are people. People.