The first danger was the mother,
The hungry-mother, the devouring mother
The not-so-sweet mother eating lettuces
And bidding away her bun in the oven —
For what? Potatoes and rampion, dirty
Roots and soiled salad, my brilliant bulbs
Of garlic and spinach green.

Sure, my garden was a top-rate attraction,
The pick of the bunch, and as award-winning
As any prized pig! Even the dandelions sprang
With love for me, the radishes and asparagus
Bloomed and spun beneath my spinster skill.

It wasn’t my carrots that came at the babe price
No matter how curious and curved their cuts —
No, I took her away from the mother-bond, that
Snake found eating animal fat and dealing out
Her daughter like poker chips, like copper coins
And her husband, the limp white fish.

You can ask what kind of witch am I to barter an
Only daughter, that sacrifice for female appetite
Once unfed then made unfeeling. You can ask
What kind of woman takes the child of a woman
Makes the child of a woman the trial of a woman
— but what kind of woman sells a child?

The second danger was the men, so keen to eat
That they would tear at anything, leave her like
Chicken skins and bruised half-bitten apples, torn
Open and trampled or tossed. No, I’d not let them
Plunder the plump of her body, let them waste
Her like wishbone, gnawed raw and unclean.

I did what anyone should do: I tucked her into
My tower, towered above her and taught her
To brush her long braids. Encircling her,
I washed and undressed her bright body —
Protecting her sweetmeat, that sponge cake,
The tiny cabbage of girlhood.