These photos
were taken by Red Riding
on her way across the forest -
they start in summer,
(lizard green and yellow
like a salamander’s gullet)
end in Jan,
(bright teeth, lodged against the
black mouths of curved paths.)
You can’t see the girl
in any of them.
She was behind the lense.
There’s one -
that’s opened up a bowl
of tangled roots.
She took it as the wolf
had got her by the throat.
But can you see the shadow in the last?
It’s a photograph
of the blossom scattered ground -
and the detail is lost in the twigs,
but there she is –
she’s a dark shape
picking the fur
from off his skin -
sewing it in-
to a bloody coat.
I can’t see the photos, I’m afraid, but these library computers aren’t up to much. Thanks to your vvivid desciptions, however, I can imagine them quite well, and very spooky they are too.
One thing rankles, though…well, two, to be more accurate (and there’s not much point being a pedant if you’re not accurate, is there?), viz.:
1. The title – I think you mean ‘En route’.
2. ‘Lense’ – should be ‘lens’.