Cavity

I.

After it all went dark, he whispered to her
low growl reverberating, low note
a bow pulled along the bass string
of her spine the better to keep you close,
my dear while Grandma whimpered softly.

And that is how Red found herself settled
in the swelled belly of an unlikely lover,
cradled woman that now lived at the pace
of his caged animal heart. She sang him lullabies
until the ceiling of her world rose and fell

in slow heaves, traced letters on the fleshy walls
of his stomach, spelling words he guessed or couldn't.
When he laughed, she was anointed by faint light
from a place unremembered, because maybe
this is all she ever wanted or could want.

He came to her draped in canvas tents,
unhinging jaws to swallow whole the glowing flame
of all she was, the empty filling the empty:
the sunken cavity of his abdomen
bloating to the belly of a stone Buddha.

II.

When the axe ripped through his furry coat
Grandma fainted mid-novena, leaving Red
to protest too late the cesarean that had torn apart
her world. Standing above him, she felt his nose was cold
and wet. She knew it couldn't have lasted.

Grandma didn't speak again, only rocking
back and forth, bloody organ in a jar
now her always metronome. Red's eyes
looked for something and nothing, both empty and full.
The wine from her basket was gone.

These days, it is always too bright for the lonely,
who whisper the coming of a prophet reborn
cloaked in the trappings of a wolf's hide.
She roams the woods at night
howling lullabies in hollow tones.


This is the first draft of a poem I have to hand in on Monday . . . I have one due every week. We've been reading a lot of poems based on myth and after coming across an Anne Sexton poem called "Rapunzel," I decided to try something in that vein rather than come up with an original theme, which more often than not (read: always) turns out being totally unoriginal and painful to write. Anyways, for reasons unknown I started thinking about Little Red Riding Hood and the bastardization above is what happened . . . unwittingly, an exploration of Little Red's Stockholm syndrome. Oh dear.

I'm only up this late because it is Thursday in Geneseo, and the sad reality of living on Main Street is that if I'm not asleep before 11 o'clock, I can't fall asleep until after 2 o'clock when the bars close. Unfortunately, I didn't make curfew . . . but I did get my poem done at the very least. Other good news: it is officially Friday. TGIF!