Needlefeet

One

-In a house of sticks sat a marchioness and two of her

maids. They went there Sundays.

-Isolde had to be a fancy lady. She had a manor

specially built for tea.

-Polly was a doll, Wendy a felt horse. They sipped with

their pinkies up, of course.

-Isolde’s friends would say, in a candid way, that her

society was improving, most days.

-Isolde in her hidden house, off in a copse while

mother slept. Father gone in a pinstriped suit and a

governess hanging clothes, singing Irish.

-Isolde had a dirty cheek; blackish loam smeared on

pretty white birch bark and because of the low light,

stinging, not seeing, ‘twas a splinter buried...

Two

-In the dappled shade, spinney leaves will fade. They

hid behind an old wicker chair-seat front gate.

-She must drift outside; dainty, lilting strides, and

by fairy craft give her teahouse eyes.

Bridge

-Isolde wants window light! She dislikes parasites!

Open the walls and oh, my dear, well that smells

lovely!

-But do you hear the sound of a dead and wood bone

cracking? There’s a foot upon the ground without and

the birds have left off laughing!

-Stay within thy castle and mute thy ladies’ thread and

cotton tongues. Their songs, if sung, would bring the

broken stick foot hither!

-Another step draws near! Thy ladies shake with fear!

Don’t make a sound! Tendrils run along the ground,

they’re searching, searching!

-Is it alive or dead? Does the footfall have a head? Is

it a face with eyes, and has it spied Isolde small and

pale with dread?

-And then sepulchral breath slips past teeth all wrong

from death. That crooked air won’t linger there, it

drips and drops on Isolde’s hair…

-Isolde tumbles out and away, gone from the woods and

into the daylight. She will sip her tea with the

governess and listen to mother sleeping!

-Isolde doesn’t need a special secret wooded teatime

retreat! There’s nothing restful about a parlor rank

with rot and loud with needlefeet!