Three After Pamela Colman Smith, by M. M. Adjarian

The Magician, Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, by Pamela Colman Smith (England) 1909

The Magician (I)

Fairy Tale

They fed me fairy tales with my first milk 
long before my mouth formed words. 
Failed enchanters trapped inside a crumbling 
Camelot, they armed me with the power of 
magic thinking. It was their gift, a shield 
against old demons—some they conjured up 
like zombies—and ordinary monsters, in the
castle, down the street. They knew that
children catch magic easier than the chicken 
pox just like they knew I’d heal. But did 
they know that shingles, itchy button  
roses, return when walls made of denial
and make believe weaken. So much easier to
wish away all wrongs, especially ones 
committed quietly in Camelot, assured that 
happy endings prevailed like Galahad and 
Lancelot. What my failed enchanters never 
counted on was a child that fell into the world 
then cracked, mirror to their brokenness. I fled 
them, their Camelot but not all of their illusions.
Beautiful remnants of their disease, they live 
deep as viruses, strong as fortress walls.

The High Priestess, Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, by Pamela Colman Smith (England) 1909

The High Priestess (II)

Fruiting Bodies

                A pear-shaped place that bleeds and stains like 
pomegranate juice makes you a girl. 
 
                You like those fruits and others, too, but aren’t
a flower made for pollination. 
 
               You’d rather feast on trees of knowledge and
be a friend to snakes and snowy owls,

               not ripen on a branch waiting for a hand to
pick you and a mouth to eat your flesh: 
 
               trees turned to books to feed your hungry 
mind don’t bruise or rot like fruit.  
 
               Neat and sweet as nectarines, the other girls you
know care only about who touched who
 
               and how. But you forgo the trifles between
girls and boys to muse on fuzzy-legged
 
                bees. With tiny, yellowed feet, they stroke the 
flowers into the joy that bears the fruit that
 
                spills the seeds into a waiting wanton earth 
that gestates secrets in the dark. Like the ebb and
 
                flow of tides and bodies, it’s cyclic. Cosmic.
And at times orgasmic. What you know
 
                you rarely tell, just like the watchful moon
that hangs like silver fruit above you in the sky.

The Emperor, Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, by Pamela Colman Smith (England) 1909

The Emperor (IV)
​
The Rocking Throne

M. M. Adjarian

M. M. Adjarian has published her creative work in such journals as the Baltimore Review, South 85, Grub Street, Crack the Spine, North Dakota Quarterly and Poetry Flash. Currently, she is revising a memoir and working on her first collection of poetry. She lives in Austin.