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Seductive night
of promise and disco beats,
she retreats,
shrouding her body,
masking her face,
and scribbling her scarlet mouth;
preened, she is grown-up.
A bambi-gaze of lashes,
fingernails chewed away, a wicker
basket, hesitating, filled with
sticky plasters, red lip-gloss
and her mature receipt.
A feverish breath in the looking-glass
precedes her leaving,
a paper lantern, ghostly
and bright, bobs along above the pulse
of treetops as she skips, guzzling
syrup from a flask
the cold loses its
grips and she begins to n
rise like a hot
air o
ba l l o
landing
la la la
laughing
at guarded gates,
removing
her apple-red cape, or she is removed
moving, swaying to the
thump, not disco, harsher,
beats like thunder that rumble under
her painted skin
freedom to stumble, arms outstretched, dancing
by friends (surrounded) by wolves
a certain stiffness slip p i n g a w a y into a woodland;
forest floor coated with sticky sugar
and stains
(she was unaware that she would
become one of them)
Her thoughts become muffled she doesn’t have to think
about the noise in her skull or whether
her plaits are in uniform
or if the vodka pooling on her top looks like
baby dribble
or if the handsome wolf beside her has a colossal nose,
or winking eyes,
or sharpened daggers for teeth.
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