Goldilocks
By all accounts, she was willful, yes, but
she often gave in––again and again,
she surrendered to siblings bigger or rougher.
Because she was pretty and blond,
some kids in adult dress found her charming.
By day, she wove filaments of light and bone
into a tousled shelter––charming!
There she slept on pillows of dry stone
flowing with milk and honey in her dreams.
Then one day it all changed—hence the story.
You know it well: How she goes in without
knocking and meets the bears who refuse her.
O, how the life she’d spread out before her
like a picnic blanket on the dull ground
steams then with her fright––and her fury!
Here’s the sequel: next day or year she returns
and bleats like the lamb of old herdsmen
at their door, and yields up her pride
yet again to admit a deep bear love––
and then turns and sets out on her life.
Well, that was long ago and far away.
She’s old now and sits on her heels
as day winds down like a goat stepping
in the dirt of rocky fissures, moving over
the mountain to the other side, into night.
the mountain to the other side, into night.