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and being fleet of foot, I take it,
make quick work of it,
(I've been this way before)
the grass is matted into
an old carpet that wears
the tread of those less tired,
than I have been, am now.
This is a winter without scene.
Nothing picturesque for the Rockwells
of this world to commit to nostalgia.
Grandma's cottage is a memory,
mowed down to make way
for progress, for four-lanes and
faster foods – baskets no longer necessary.
I am without the sense
my grandma's cape attempted
to drape me in. This is no dream—
honeymoon's end.
I married the hunter, sang
for my supper.
He brings home the bacon,
a deadly prize,
a bullet between its eyes.
I lay the bloody things he brings
in the pan and listen to them sizzle
deeper into death.
No one can take back
words spoken under duress
or vows made of the stress
of conforming to the story
the reader wants to be told.
I hold the ghost of a wildflower
bouquet in my arms,
as I would the baby I cannot bear,
barren this winter,
and last and the one before,
my belly sewn full of rocks.
If this wood world we inhabit
be a dream, then let it end
so a new dream can assure
another winter, with snow so blue,
so fine, the pines will wear capes
of it like outstretched storks' wings.
The air will ring and ring and ring
with white bells
and the belly of every bride
will rise high, a moon for each
wolf who nightly cries out
to the punishing sky
in brazen voice echoing
fate's unsated hungers.
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