The Poison Tree: A Peace Play

Nazi Germany: Hitler Youth members Hans and Fritz enter the Black Forest to hunt down a mysterious man in a toga. Yet after they eat magic mushrooms, things go haywire. Their woodland presence alarms the elf king, distrustful of mortals and enraged that the fairy king has failed to guard his borders due to a family crisis: One of his consorts has abandoned him for a dancing bear from Punjab, escaped from a traveling circus. Later, when the fairy liege and his elvish rival find that the accursed Poison Tree of old has awoken, they learn that their peaceful kingdoms face an even graver threat. The Poison Tree must be felled with a magic ax, requiring aid from the Moth Queen, a mysterious agent of divine retribution who kills violent men via moths and moth holes. In the end, only spiritual methods will mend “the breach,” the crack in a protective shield separating mortal and fantastical worlds.

Anna Cates is a graduate of Indiana State University (M.A. English and Ph.D. Curriculum & Instruction/English), and National University (M.F.A. Creative Writing). She teaches college writing and literature and graduate education online. Her full-length poetry collection, Love in the Time of Covid, won an Illumination Book Award. She resides in Wilmington, Ohio, with her beautiful kitty, Fifi.