II. The Child-Eaters
i.
Red Riding-Hood
The
herds are safe in southern pastures.
In
these mountains, cold
grips
the valleys early. No footprints, except the goatherd’s,
or hieroglyph bird tracks
on grass
flattened under snow.
A few dwellings among the
rocks, chimney smoke
mimicking stony roots of
pine: far off, wolves, howling.
The sound is hunger, huge,
something pitiful, remote,
but we know too,
without remorse, the mineral
eye
caught in light from cottage
windows.
At
this time of year, any man living
keeps to the path, and then
only with a long blade slid
down the boot, its edge
long enough, thick enough,
to dig past wolf ribs
to the heart.
But each wolf is a man’s
weight, heavy −
red-yellow eyes stalking
famine in these mountains.
Three to find him, five to
kill him, what chance
a child…
In the village, a bride,
snuggled under wool and muslin,
her first night married: her
husband −
a farmer, a little slow
but in these hills a catch −
shifts his weight foot to foot,
stares at the floor.
He
sees her spread of mane, her large black eyes, and wonders
what to do, what to do, then
says, I need to pee
and steps towards the door.
No, here, she
says, looking to the corner pot, but he
too shy this first night
steps out into the dark.
For seven days they search,
her father, her brothers,
in the hills, through scabby
pines, in claptrap barns
but nothing, no-one,
nowhere.
She set aside her wedding
dress, and the months passed;
in time, she wed again −
not to one who wanders out
in wolf country, but true
to ready wool, black eyes
and the mane:
in the cold room, from the
corner pot
the pong of steamy leek.
*
… Their daughter herded,
leapt crags,
knew the song the blade
makes on oil stone.
Prettier
than most, no scars, her Grandmother’s precious-precious,
she knew the way
to hers and back, an arrow’s
flight,
a cloth-yard of arrow, a
distance of wool and muslin
her Mother let her fly.
And she, twelve, thirteen
perhaps −
who could know, here beyond
Christian registers,
her boyish body a thinning
membrane of first blood,
a shift of swelling hips and
breasts
fearless through that
landscape.
Her
Mother let her fly…
My lovely, the boy from the village
came to set your Grandma’s hearth this
morning, but says she’s poorly.
Take these oatcakes and nettle wine, and keep her
company.
The wind out’s hard; take your shawl, the red one I
mended.
Remember your knife.
Her Grandmother’s hut, squat
squalid above a byre
she kept for milking-goats,
swayed in the north wind,
the ladder to it creaking in
the north wind,
the creaking she took as
north wind,
not climbing:
whoever heard of a wolf
climbing ladders, slimy goat
guts still stuck in his teeth?
But
then, who knows what wolves know
in their long language,
ridge to long ridge
their howling connects,
above the desolate huts?
The Grandmother heard the
latch −
Precious-precious, is that you?
… then dark against the
doorframe
she
knew the shape, heavy as a man stood black against the light,
and the last thing
she saw, her own scrawny
belly
hanging from the wolf’s
mouth, her last scream
gone crunch,
a popping hearth coal
reflected in her eyes.
*
The
girl took the path
across the high ridge, the
path she knew
wolves took, but this time
of year,
the rocks shot through with
alpines, with sedum
yellow as a wolf’s eye, with
dainty reds
stretching towards the weak
light,
she plucked them for a
poesy, set brightly
about the cakes and wine
gourd.
Her Grandmother’s
favourites: pretty alpines, cakes
and nettle wine… her
Grandmother, whose teeth
and scalp (too tough to
chew) were in a stew
Wolf
stirred −
this standing-up,
sitting-down
Wolf, this Wolf who whistled
by the fire,
who knew as well as you,
or me, that Grandma’s
precious-precious
must be young, plump, and
worth a try, away
from north winds blowing
through the byre.
He stretched back on the
bed, picked his lice,
and waited.
The path she took, by chance
or cunning, brought her
from the south, downwind.
She came to the byre, and
saw a piece of milking-goat,
another, and another, the
north wind creaking
through stale straw, the
ladder and the hut.
She
turned, looking to the wood of scabby pine
dusted red-yellow, and
breathed
once, and once again, and
steadied on the ladder.
She touched the latch; it
gave.
Dark inside, the fire gone
down,
She stepped into the room…
Prcis prscis com to ths bd
ey hv to shw yu smthng prcis
She
stepped a step.
Prcis prscis tk offyr clths
cm
In that new dark, dropping
her shawl, her red shawl
mended by her Mother, her
shift
and stockings, her clogs
kicked off
by the dead fire, she
reached deep into the basket
of pretty flowers − bright
alpines red and yellow −
and climbed into the bed.
Across
her belly, his bristle of rough coat
shivered… the cold eye, the
twitching ear
and nostril:
I knwo you.
The
scent of stew
still
faint in the room, on his breath, she said,
And I know you.
Wolf looked down: under wool
and muslin,
she took in her hand
Wolf-cock, Wolf-balls, and said,
Long enough, thick enough,
larger than a lamb’s head, these are for you, and raised
the dripping dough to let
him see, and pulling the knife
still further, filleted the
howl
hissing for air in Wolf’s
throat.
She
stood by the bed, blood
smeared across her legs and
belly, her face.
In
the cold room, above the bed, damp
fogged the dark.
She walked to the hearth, and made a fire.
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