Little Red Riding Hood Hides Out

She arrives being brave—I’m being

very brave—so much of the evidence

has been burned.  She arrives trying

harder, having been balled up

at the base of the bed, lying beyond

easily.  She’s lost the ability to fly

herself through, surrounded

by physicians, or just one of them

with one great light strapped

to his head:  “My dear, it seems

that to say ‘I’ is an admission

you don’t want to make.”

Have You Been Saved?

His fool face.

Her startled, “don’t-do-it” eyes.

He is awake.

He feels awake.

But between memory and skeleton,

the first bit of snarl.

The wordless event.

Hero pleasure cutting through.

He begins to look painted.

His ugly comes out:

(They had been harvesting corn.

He whispered first to the field,

lips to silk.

A thousand ears to listen.

The sound of her feeling bounced back.

Then, another kind of arrow.

They cried for the rocks

in the mountains, but it was too late.)