This poem does NOT appear in [Dragonthology is OUT of print], the new anthology of dragon stories from Untold Press, which contains my silly short story, “The Dragon of Sullivan Hall”. Sullivan Hall is a college dorm, not a castle.

No, this poem is part of The Southern Indiana Writers Group’s anthology DRAGON: OUR TALES, which contains, in addition to this poem, my very first Bud Blossom story.

THE TRANSFORMATION
by Marian Allen

Yesterday
I was a tender maid,
muscles firm, eyes bright.
Today
my skin is wrinkled leather
covered with rough white scales.
I make noise walking;
my body large, unwieldy.
And do I guard my treasure?
Hoard it with bitter jealousy,
gloating, pinning it firmly
beneath my reddened claws?
I do.

“I do.”
We spoke those words
of brightest power and the spell
began. The decades of enchantment
ended when the life of the enchanter
ended.
See what I have become.

And what is left but treasure?
Coin, jewels, artifacts, remembrances
still warm from the enthrallment,
charming my heart to holocaust,
burning my eyes with salt.
Dim are the eyes of my reflection,
smoke-dim from the flame
that burns inside,
consuming me
as once the flame consumed
the tender maid.

~*~

I’m not always silly, am I?

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character muses on the aging process.

MA