Red Riding Hood

The howling in the wood or on the moors
is almost singing; that is why it scares.
A predator that thinks as well as tears
your flesh with teeth, whose bloody drooling jaws

can almost speak. Whose eyes have deep inside
a sense of someone watching who might know
just who you are. At night, they almost glow
with magic. One lived with us, and he lied

said he was human, though his one long brow
strange looking fingers gave the game away.
They come among us, so grandmothers say,
they want our love, but really don't know how

to be quite human. So they kill instead
hoping to eat the secret from the dead.