The Dragon and the Troll
by Marge Simon
With velvet gaze,
dark as licorice,
she stoned me.
From that moment,
I was hers.
Her mother wept,
her father swore,
yet she was as stubborn
as she was fair, and thus
we paired for life,
I in my cave,
she in her grotto.
Summer days,
she’d hop on my back
for a glide along the beach.
She sang to me of love
in her strange tongue
as we covered
the steps of the sun.
I fell ill once,
a malady peculiar to dragons,
my scales wept gold.
But she stayed by my side,
to wash my brow,
prepare my medicines.
Delirious, half mad,
I lashed her with flame,
but she forgave.
During hunting season,
troll pelts are highly prized,
even more than dragon teeth.
In the end, I wasn’t there for her.
Men skilled with spear and sword
claimed my family as well,
yet by fateful intervention, I was spared.
Nothing left for me but to play dead,
be dragged away for mass burial
with my brothers and sisters,
as dragon rites proclaim.
But first, I’ll go to her den,
place a flower on the moss.
