Obedience,
or the Lying Tale By Jennifer Chang
I will do
everything you tell me, Mother.
I will
charm three gold hairs
from the
demon’s head.
I will
choke the mouse that gnaws
an apple
tree’s roots and keep its skin
for a
glove. To the wolf, I will be
pretty and
kind and curtsy
his
crossing of my path.
The forest,
vocal
even in its
somber tread, rages.
A slope
ends in a pit of foxes
drunk on
rotten brambles of berries
and the
raccoons ransack
a rabbit’s
unmasked hole.
What do
they find but a winter’s heap
of
droppings? A stolen nest, the cracked shell
of another
creature’s child.
I imagine
this is the rabbit way
and I will
not stray, Mother,
into the
forest’s thick,
where the
trees meet the dark,
though I
have known misgivings
of light as
a hot hand that flickers
against my
neck. The path ends
at a river
I must cross. I will wait
for the
ferryman
to motion
me through. Into the waves
he etches
with his oar
a new
story: a silent girl runs away,
a silent
girl is never safe.
I will take
his oar in my hand. I will learn
the boat’s
rocking and bring myself back
and forth.
To be good
is the
hurricane of caution.
I will know
indecision’s rowing,
the water I
lap into my lap
as he
shakes his withered head.
Behind me
is the forest. Before me
the field,
a loose run of grass. I stay
in the
river, Mother, I study escape.
#teenagerebellion
#imagery #sarcasm #uppersec
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