A Fairy Tale Life

by Mary Rohrer-Dann


“Keep house for us, cook and clean, wash and weave, knit and darn, milk the cow, chop the wood, plow the lower forty acres,” said the Dwarfs, “and, sure, you can hang with us. Also, tend the bees, weed the garden, feed the goats, keep our accounts and invest wisely (we work hard for our money) and care for Ma and while you’re at it, home-school Dopey. Don’t forget to pick up Doc’s meds, scour the shower grout, and collect more Valerian root (Grumpy’s having trouble sleeping), and please please please find something for Bashful’s intestinal gas, okay?” 
The dwarfs put on their caps, shouldered their shovels, promised, “You shall have everything you want” and left for work singing “Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, etc.”
And into the forest ran Snow White screaming, searching for a huntsman, a witch peddling poison apples, a wolf–whatever.  Any savior would do.


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Mary Rohrer-Dann is author of Taking the Long Way Home, (Kelsay Books 2021), and La Scaffetta: Poems from the Foundling Drawer (Tempest Productions, Inc., 2011). Find her flash prose and poems in Philadelphia Stories, Clackamas Review, Third Wednesday, South Shore Review, Vestal Review, Rat’s Ass Review, 6S Society, and in Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (forthcoming).  She paints, hikes, and volunteers at Rising Hope Stables and with Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Although she has long lived in central PA, she is still a Philly girl at heart.