Poems by Anna Cates

The Final Fairy

by Anna Cates

From Canary Spring 2021

Anna resides in a small Midwestern town in a rural county, at the edge of the Appalachian mountains, on a quiet street near a field where pass the occasional deer. Her local watersheds include Little Miami River, Paint Creek, and Caesar Creek Lake.

Woods wane and buds break
in crimson spills over an empty field.
What eyes fail to see a wolf tracks,
yet gently. The final fairy, no bigger
than a buttercup, and just as sweet,
lingers, sometimes, only in our dreams,
hoping we’ll remember. Plant a tree
for her, and pick up your plastic waste.
Make haste! Make haste! she cries.
Remember! I, too, am dying!