Landscape: In the Forest

Midnight. The witch's hut
splits like a pomegranate.
Dried flowers pour from seams in the wall.
The floorboards shiver, shred, caress
themselves with splintery claws,
pine needles, in love with their own scent.

And now the forest, where only this evening
the coaches of princes clattered,
is silent—the ladies vanished like light,
the fur, the velvet—and now
the witch in her child clothing
wanders among green branches,

her skin the wax of berries, her feathery hair
innocent as new leaves.

Copyright © 2003 Sandra M. Gilbert All rights reserved
from The Poets' Grimm, edited by Jeanne Marie Beaumont & Claudia Carlson
Story Line Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission