Red Jill

Let me tell you a story,

a tale heard before,

a long while ago,

about the time horses had horns

and some men grew taller than houses.

The girl with the red cloak,

prepubescent white and red,

went into the woods, alone.

Bade by her mother

to go into the woods

where grandmother lived

in a grove of trees the shape of the moon.

Into the woods she went.

She went alone,

for this was Jill

before she met Jack.

She was the same Jill.

They never told you that in their stories.

Jill took her red cloak,

a cloak made by granny

before granny went to live

in the woods, alone.

Bade by her mother, Jill folded

a basket with meatpies and bread

into her cloak, in a hollow

against her prepubescent body.

She and the basket were warm and white and red.

The villagers spoke about her.

They called her Little Red Riding Hood

when the hood caught under her mouth

that was red on red on white.

The name still stuck,

though she was taller;

yes, taller than her doll houses,

though she had no crown, just her head.

Jill flung on her cloak,

but before her cloak went on

she took a basket of meat and bread

for her recluse grandmother.

She also took up a knife,

the old hunting knife

that was her father’s,

and before that his father’s

and his father’s father’s.

It was a small sword she strapped to her thigh.

She set out, into the woods,

the woods where trees cast shadows

like horns under the moon.

Her arm was under her basket.

Her hand grasped the hilt of her sword.

In the woods, Jill met a wolf,

a great hairy beast on two legs.

He offered, inquired, to go her way,

but the girl said no, not this evening.

She knew the manner of speaking

to a wolf on two legs.

He insisted on taking her arm

until she drew her sword,

taking her sword from her hip point

to the hollow of his throat,

the shape of the moon

when the frost lies under it.

The wolf dashed into the woods

with the swift regret of a spiked horse

when he knows his manner

insists on prepubescence.

Jill kept to the path,

the path over the river

 and through the woods,

on the way to grandmother’s house,

under the moon on the frost.

She had brought no bucket for water.

Moreover, no fish saw her basket of bread.

She kept her red cloak around her

and made holes in the woods

where her swift feet tore up the path.

She came to the house

 where grandmother lived,

in a house in a grove in the woods,

with spiked walls and long gates.

Jill flung open the gates

and rapped on the house,

on the door to the house carved with men,

with tall men on horses.

“Who is it?” called the voice,

the voice of her grandmother.

“Grandmother, it’s me. I brought supplies,” Jill said,

speaking through the door, red and warm,

 and on her thigh she set her sword.

“Come in,” Jill heard the voice say,

and Jill opened the door,

 she spun open the handle,

to one-room living lit by fire,

both red and warm inside the room.

Lying under covers in granny’s bed,

crowned in a satin nightcap,

lingered eyes, both large and red.

“My, what large eyes you have,” Jill said,

and spoke to the figure

coming out from the covers

with both eyes set

 upon her and the cloak.

“The better to see you with,” said the figure,

coming out from the red

and white covers of granny’s bed.

“My, what a large nose you have,” Jill said,

 speaking to the nose as long as the road,

like the path her feet had carved

on the way to grandmother’s house.

“All the better to smell you with,” said the nose,

moreover the insistent mouth underneath,

a mouth all white and the shape of the moon.

Jill set her basket near the fire,

on a table where granny stored

 some fabric supplies.

The basket came out of the fold

of her warm cloak, as her hand

reached into her cloak

and felt her sword,

the hilt veiled inside the red fabric folds.

As the great, hairy figure

emerged from the bed

in the red and white bedcovers,

in the satin nightcap,

in large proportions and on two legs,

Jill spun the sword from beneath her cloak,

and tore a path through the room

with the point of her knife,

possession of her father’s father.

She made holes through the wolf,

bade the great, hairy head open.

The red dashed upon the floor

of the home, warm and red.

The wolf had no time to regret

his path to this point,

stuck through in the woods

by a prepubescent girl.

A head came out of the wolf

through the shadow of his neck,

the old doll folds of white

with red and a pair of eyes.

“Take my arm, Grandmother,” Jill said

to the figure coming out,

to granny emerging

from the folds of the wolf,

reaching out from the veil that was the wolf.

Jill grasped her grandmother,

and set the sword on the table

beside the basket and the fire

where it shone like frost,

and from handle to point

lit red like the cloak Jill was given

by the grandmother still living in the woods.

And that ends the tale

of the girl who went hunting

to catch, no large fish,

for she had no bucket,

but a wolf, a beast standing on two legs.