Little Red Riding Hood by Olga Broumas

[map_of_the_world]

I grow old, old

without you, Mother, landscape

of my heart.   No child, no daughter between my bones

has moved, and passed

out screaming, dressed in her mantle of blood

 

 

as I did

once through your pelvic scaffold, stretching it

like a wishbone, your tenderest skin

strung on its bow and tightened

against the pain.   I slipped out like an arrow, but not before

 

 

the midwife

plunged to her wrist and guided

my baffled head to its first mark.   High forceps

might, in that one instant, have accomplished

what you and that good woman failed

in all these years to do:      cramp

me between the temples, hobble

my baby feet.      Dressed in my red hood, howling, I went –

 

 

evading

the white clad doctor and his fancy claims:       microscope,

stethoscope, scalpel, all

the better to see with, to hear,

and to eat – straight from your hollowed basket

into the midwife’s skirts.     I grew up

 

 

good at evading, and when you said,

“Stick to the road and forget the flowers, there’s

wolves in those bushes, mind

where you got to go, mind

you get there”. I

minded. I kept

 

 

to the road, kept

the hood secret, kept what it sheathed more

secret still.   I opened

it only at night, and with other women

who might be walking the same road to their own

grandma’s house, each with their basket of gifts, her small hood

safe in the same part.    I minded well.   I have no daughter

 

 

to trace that road, back to your lap with my laden

basket of love.  I’m growing

old, old

without you.    Mother, landscape

of my heart, architect of my body, what other gesture

can I conceive

 

 

to make with it

that would reach you, alone

in your house

and waiting, across this improbable forest

peopled with wolves and our lost, flower-gathering

sisters they feed on

Comments

[andygrrrl.livejournal.com]

Ooh, another Broumas fan! She needs way more attention, IMHO. I really miss my copy of Beginning With O, back home in the States.

[tea-drinker77.livejournal.com]

You'll have to get it shipped. I can't afford to buy it over here.

[andygrrrl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just looked it up at Amazon, and jesus, it's £14! Used! I picked up my copy second hand for *maybe* 5 bucks (and it's in pristine condition too). Shipping will probably cost some, but at least we'll get way more books out of it.

[lost-letters.livejournal.com]

oh! i found it on your blog and googled around for the whole poem.

I found it here
http://www.arlindo-correia.com/260700.html