Poetry on Sunday

Sarah Persson

There are many different stories about Y Tylwyth Teg.  One of them is that these fairy-like creatures inhabited a magical island in a lake near Brecknock.

The story goes that people were able to visit their beautiful garden and be entertained each May Day, as long as nobody removed anything from the island.

However, one year, a man took a flower away with him. From then on the door to the magical world was forever closed.

Some stories also say that Y Tylwyth Teg kidnaps human children and there are superstitions around this such as leaving an iron poker near to where the children slept.

Metal also features in accounts where female fairies have married mortal men.  The fairy spouse should avoid touching iron in case they disappear from their husbands and return to the lands of Y Tylwyth Teg.

Drws

(Door)

Tylwythen Teg sits at a plastic table

in the Seasons Cafe, on Coney Beach.

Her knife and fork are wrapped in a paper napkin

beside her children’s hot chocolates in plastic beakers.

The laminated menu has curled up corners,

gives her choices she doesn’t have.

Teg’s listening to the horses on the merry-go-round,

go round again

and the whites of the horses’ eyes

are moonlight on lakes.

Her lover’s eyes had been sea-glass,

once –

now he is iron,

alone in their bed.

Her children talk with their hands

to the clink and scratch of cutlery on plates,

they’re wind-blown and smiling

candyfloss knotted and singing along to Ed Sheeran.

Teg taps at the plastic yellow

flower in the vase on the table

waits for the garden to lock.