Cherry Red

These days you always smell of baking,
The sweetest yeasts and honeyed warmth.
Innocent in red.
You never question the lilacs I pick you,
Or the lavender I tuck behind your ear.
You adorn your cakes with the violets
I brought you from the woods.

You never seem to remember our first meeting,
The way our story started.
And you laughed like like butter melting in a pan,
When I warned you.

We've been here before.
Different woods, different lives,
Different red hoods,
And different white bones hidden in my jaws,
Or underneath a sharpened claw.
Like the sugared treats you brought for me and me alone.

The woodsman knows.
He’s read the fairy tales,
He knows what's Grimm and Good.
He knows his role and I know mine.
We’re waiting for our cues.

The show must go on.

Don’t you remember dearest,
The way I first snapped at your heels,
Leaving bits of strawberry jam in our wake.
But when the woodsman split me open,
Like the cherry pies we baked.

Our story broke.
Maybe because I didn’t end when the axe fell,
Maybe because I tasted sweetness.

He’s at the door and I feel myself sharpen.
Lifetimes of stones sit heavy in my gut,
Alongside the berries you picked me from the woods,
Don’t you remember dearest?
I wore all grey, I wore my fur coat.

You smell of baking,
Innocent in red.
I hope the violets behind my ear,
The better to hear you,
Will curl the story in on itself yet again.

We’ve been here before.
And after the axe falls,
I hope to end up here again.
​
© Isabella Hansen. All Rights Reserved.