red

If you find my door is open
you may wish to peer inside,
creeping, sneaking, floorboards creaking,
and find your prey by fireside.

Or I might wander in your woods
and find myself in danger’s path,
because the taste of forest fruit
is worth the pain of the wolf’s wrath.

You can take your sharpened teeth
and gnash at every grandma’s throat,
but clever girls with gifted pearls
sheath daggers in their petticoats.

The wolf is clever, waiting, hungry
prowling in the wood at night,
but careless fawns get dragged to dens
while finer girls enjoy the bite.

If the wolf asks me to his table
he best bind me to the chair,
for once you feed me, sate me, freely
I’ll make his wood my own dark lair.

Little makes the young girl smolder
more than a wolf who sees her face,
so she may opt to acquiesce
and let the wolf begin a chase.

The lure of peril, the scent of filth
makes frozen becks begin to thaw,
so if the wolf insists I recline
lick your lips and open your jaw.

A studied girl knows what wolves eat
there is simply no greater taste
than a meal made in submission
and supped, enjoyed, below the waist.

Can the wolf stand in flowing water
where others from the pack did drown?
You track, you hunt, seeking a costume
but I don’t wear bonnets, I wear a crown.