Even in the electric kitchen there was the smell of a journey.
—Anne Sexton, “Little Red Riding Hood”
1. In a tupperware wood, mix child and hood. Stir slowly. Add wolf.
2. Turn out onto a lightly floured path, and begin the walk home from school.
3. Sweeten the journey with candied petals: velvet tongues of violet, a posy of roses. Soon you will crave more.
4. Knead the flowers through the dough as wolf and child converse, tasting of each others flesh, a mingling of scents.
5. Now crack the wolf and separate the whites—the large eyes, the long teeth—from the yolks.
6. Fold in the yeasty souls, fermented while none were watching. You are too young to hang out in bars.
7. Cover, and, warm and moist, let the bloated belly rise nine months.
8. Shape into a pudgy child, a dough boy, lumpy but sweet. Bake half an hour.
9. Just before the time is up—the end in sight, the water broken–split the top with a hunting knife, bone-handled and sharp.
10. Serve swaddled in a wolfskin throw, cradled in a basket and left on a grandmother’s doorstep.
11. Go to your room. You have homework to be done. You are too young to be in the kitchen, cooking.
From: Datlow, Ellen and Winding, Terri (eds.), Black Thorn, White Rose, 2014, Open Rose Media: New York City, pp. [unnumbered].
(https://books.google.com.au/books?id=4SFEBAAAQBAJ)
Date: 1994
By: Lawrence Schimel (1971- )
From Troubles of The World 