As all good girls in red coats know,

it isn’t the threat of going in

but coming out of the forest

that breeds discomfort.

 

You’re used to finding dead moths

in your pockets, mice barrettes

clipped to your hair. You’ve wrestled

tree roots, chewed darkness

 

like sap, pine needles

sewn into cheeks with apple-washed

rashes from coniferous

beds. Wearing wolf

 

or grandma is all the same,

your red coat just skin turned

inside out — a show of veins

and tissue that cause other wolves

 

to spill tea, blow rumors

like windmills — a word

you’ll never find etched under

the bark, red-coded does not mean

 

safety out here. Your flame

eye-catching as fishhooks,

raw as bramble-scratched skin.

Try to remove fingerprints from the back

 

of your neck, the way you used

to take thorns from the soles

of your feet — climb ladders,

the rungs less like branches than

 

you’d hoped, break ceilings, feel

raining glass like a kicked

hornets’ nest. When you have walls

you need windows so you can admire

 

what is no longer yours. Take

what you’re given and please

(the please is the ask)

give what is wanted, coated

 

wax lips, fingers

across skinned knees peeling away

bark to see sap bleed. Fanged

heels clack mausoleum-style floors,

 

chevron-patterned linoleum. Profit,

a new word that swells and sticks heavy

on your tongue like poison oak. You think

almost longingly of the wolf, his muzzle

 

pressed endlessly to your neck for warmth

while your knife pressed collar bone to navel

spilled the mess of insides usually claimed

as offering by the forest. Now it lies         and lies

 

in mirrored buildings on white

tiles where you wonder if it is not

the forest but here

that is full of haunts. Here

 

you are the villain. Here

consequence trumps survival —

your knife, consent, held firmly

at your side, while absolution reigns

 

wildly from rust-colored

and acidic clouds.

© 2025 Lesley Hart Gunn