Mother Goose

Mother Goose Jeneé Skinner (bio) An old woman gave birth to four eggs. Gold and cradled by tree roots and ribbons inside her house. Their births were ugly, complicated by forceps and fluorescent lighting, but the loving made it worth it. Their father was more forest than man, belonging everywhere and to no one. He invited her to his pond where they swam in moonlight and she tasted a whole other world on his tongue, all the things she didn't know about redlining, recycling, and the prison-industrial complex. Before she could ask what was the best way to end lending discrimination and what plant based materials could replace plastic, the man kissed her. Then he squatted on her back, bit into her neck, spread his arms wide as if he and she would fly the night away. The old woman bit her lip as he slid his fingers over the moles of her cheek and taught her how to make love. ________ An old woman gave birth to four eggs. The eggs reflected like a lighthouse at night, smiled with the sun during the day. Predators masked as suitors approached and knocked on her door. The first was a garden snake who wrapped perfectly into the curves behind her knees and elbows. She missed being touched so much that for a moment she closed her eyes. That was all it took for the snake to swallow one of her eggs, a torch-like shimmer sliding down his throat. What the snake didn't notice was that the old woman's neck was shaped like a river, with enough bends and length to kill him. In an effort to recycle, she stretched the snake's scales and organs out, weaving them into the nest of her remaining eggs. Though she tried to pump the snake's stomach for her lost egg, all that came up was some leftover yolk. On the nights when the rat, dog, raccoon, and crow came for dinner, the old woman was ready. First came their smile and conversation, then their hunger. None of them ever suspected that she was hungry too, that she craved flesh, not just for her lost child, but to feel desired, to be reminded that she was a woman before she was old. Their paws, wings, snouts momentarily smoothed out her wrinkles when they embraced, but her eyes stayed open and her neck stayed sharp. The fox's tongue was the most cunning, his eyes the most familiar. It wasn't until after his teeth went for her throat, after her neck wrapped around his, after her teeth crushed his jaw that she recognized he was the father of her children. Pulling off the fox's clothing, the old woman saw her beloved's eyes, human, round pupils instead of slits. Despite the night he made her feel like she could fly, he tried to consume what they had made, when she would've happily shared her riches if he'd asked or just stayed. She vowed to spend as few tears on him as needed, then lined her children's nest with his body as she'd done with the rest. By the time the police knocked on her door and questioned her about her beloved's disappearance, her goslings had already hatched and made a meal of him, not even sparing the bones. End Page 17 It made her happy that her children had been close to their father in some way and that his body gave back to the community they cared so much about. ________ An old woman gave birth to four eggs. The remaining three hatched, blessing their mother with a few years of chirps, soft down feathers, and need. But their youth was a race that ran faster than the old woman was ready for. Soon they waddled out of the house. One joined a gaggle of geese, choosing a simple, traditional life dictated by weather. The second spent his days going to marshes and lakes, trying to chase moonlight, the same in which his parents conceived him, until a wolf snatched him up for dinner when he got too close to shore. The. . .