Goldilocks Mother by Elizabeth Obadina

 The door slammed shut

With sound and fury

Rattling windows in their frames.

A gulf of silence

Swallowed the angry words,

Swallowed the I-hate-you-s

And love grew worried.

The silence grew

Filling corners

And her chair

And her hiding place under the stair

And love waited

Until

Plucking a lantern

From a hook on the wall

And wrapping a cloak tight

Over her shawl,

Love ventured out

Into the winter woods

Where the bears roamed wild

And the winds whined,

After the child

Who had stormed away

Stamping

And refusing to eat

The porridge that

Love set before her.

28^th July 2015

(First Published in a Hightown Writers Anthology A Book of Delights 2016)