Little Red

(published on Concrete Online 12/07/2022)

Seductive night

of promise and disco beats,

she retreats,

shrouding her body,

masking her face,

and scribbling her scarlet mouth;

preened, she is grown-up.

A bambi-gaze of lashes,

fingernails chewed away, a wicker

basket, hesitating, filled with

sticky plasters, red lip-gloss

and her mature receipt.

A feverish breath in the looking-glass

precedes her leaving,

a paper lantern, ghostly

and bright, bobs along above the pulse

of treetops as she skips, guzzling

syrup from a flask

                                         the cold loses its

                                         grips and she begins to                                                                n

                                                                  rise like a hot                                                   

                                                                                           air                                 o

                                                                                                    ba l  l     o  

         landing

la la la

    laughing

at guarded gates,

removing

her apple-red cape, or she is removed

                                               moving, swaying to the

                                                                thump, not disco, harsher,

                                                                beats like thunder that rumble under

                                                                       her painted skin

freedom to stumble, arms outstretched, dancing

                   by friends                     (surrounded)                      by wolves

a certain stiffness slip p i n g  a  w  a      y                                                     into a woodland;

                                                                                           forest floor coated with sticky sugar

                                                                                                    and stains

                                                                                          (she was unaware that she would

                                                                                                    become one of them)

Her thoughts become muffled she doesn’t have to think

about the noise in her skull or whether

her plaits are in uniform

or if the vodka pooling on her top looks like

baby dribble

                                                            or if the handsome wolf beside her has a colossal nose,

                                                       or winking eyes,

                                                                                   or sharpened daggers for teeth.