In the North countries, they tell stories
of a fox who takes the shape of a woman
and lures men to the woods.
She devours them.
Nonsense, my husband says,
plucking the flower from my hair.
This, he says, is a woman.
He runs rough fingers over the soft, flushed petals,
carelessly tearing them.
This is you, he says.
How could you devour a man?
I look deep into the rosy maw,
wondering what he would say if he knew
that I can already taste his blood.