The Foxtailed Girl

 

Wet nose to the ground,

he sucked in the woodland scents:

 

Wet cedar, earthy moss,

loose clover petals.

And – like canines do –

he followed the trail she left

with her black buckled shoes.

When he heard the hum

of bees wings singing her presence,

he stopped to smell the flora

and came upon one rare shoot,

soon to split open in bloom. Wolf

 

imagined what must surely hide inside:

 

Silene Virginica, her cherry

colored petals folded tight

within a casing of red, a flower

so rarely anymore seen

in these dandelioned woods

of weeds. He plucked

what must rightfully be his.

 

His tongue opened the bud,

casting the hood to the flowered

bed below his feet. As the ruby

foxtailed locks emerged,

catching sunlight as she shook

them loose - wolf never thought

what else could hide behind a veil:

 

upright foxtail of thorns that cling

to canine skin. He never thought

that in the morning  he may be left

with nothing but an empty hood,

a pair of black buckled shoes,

and a set of foxtail thorns

embed into his skin.

 

And as the barefooted Red flower

 

Floats through the woods,

Earth and pussytoe blooms

Between her toes – tasting

happily ever after with a red

petaled tongue on the feet

of passing monarchs - perhaps

the now swollen tongued

and bloody nosed wolf will howl:

 

Beware the wild foxtailed girl 

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