TO ROBERT SOUTHEY FOR HIS TALE OF GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

 TO ROBERT SOUTHEY FOR HIS TALE OF GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

With bewilderment

 

Three bears

Oh perfect symmetry

Three bowls

One red, one green, one blue

On a rickety table

One LARGE jar of honey in the middle of the table

Three silver spoons

The porridge steaming there

Why did they leave it

IT WILL GET COOL

To go out for a walk

Weren’t they hungry

A question no one asks

Was it a trap?

Were the bears psychic?

Did they know goldilocks was on her way

So many unanswered questions

Journalism, these days

Anyway.

Here she comes

In a striped candy cane dress I imagine

With her best patent leathers on the shiny kind

A small purse to match

An empty house she cries

What fun

And goes inside.

There’ s the porridge

Lets be really rude

And eat some from everybody’s bowl

Here I go.

Poor baby bear.

Not a smidgeon left.

Then she climbs the stairs

Tired from her skipping

Three feather beds

Her toddler legs feel like lead

Oooh bouncy bounce bounce

She falls asleep

Into golden slumbers dreaming deep

And wakens to find three psychic bears

Staring at her

So she flees

Strengthened by baby bear’s oatmeal. Cream of wheat?

Malt o meal?

What on earth are we supposed to learn from this story??

I’ll be thinking

Even in Glory.

Mary angela douglas 20 april 2024