Carol Ann Duffy

In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me,

sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink

The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,

away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place

One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said

breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem

in the woods to tell that a mushroom

stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse

I took an axe

to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon

to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf

as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat,

I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up

It was late September. I’d just poured a glass of wine, begun

to unwind, while the vegetables cooked.

the way

the dark of the ground seems to drink the light of the sky

now I feared his honeyed embrace,

the kiss that would turn my lips to a work of art