Folk Tales on Postcards # 2

“Furtooth Smoke; Or, The Wolf”

at the base of the foothill I felt the temperature drop inchmeal, a maddened spelunker cascading down into an unexplored box left by a vindictive pandora, passing me downward among my ascension in time

i took first steps up the mountain driven off balance and shaking from the soak of cool drizzle and gulping the ancient crone’s well wine like a child told to rush medicine down their throat

no alternative but to trust and comply as new born babe without vote beyond out cry

i was warned by the likes worse than devils not to drink

but she sang it was the only way to see in that fog out there among wooded fakery and tricks beyond parlors that waited mischievously too low to the land’s puzzle of greensward floor

though way past late now as the shock of her sugary elixir and the glacé texture of her changing face took hold of my slight understanding and doors and windows of undiscovered colors swapped their places ajar built of material I could not recognize nor recommend you research

or was it sick-making?

goddamn it’s getting cold

learned too the wild, night haired dog of gray muzzle to my left out here looking for me to follow its eyes virescent and steady,

adopted me with an air as gelid as this parky weather

Furtooth Smoke

could now speak, by human tongue, begrudgingly it seemed, like tastebuds catching hold of sour notes

for further proof how else it’s name would I know?

did it drink too?

a pact was made to trail northward for we both had someone to save

unsure yet what quite to do

brought to this unspoken, before the awakening of potions, all the same we betrayed history in similar sin

onto the footpath of massif gloom

this ally and I began our quittance of two

and from behind we caught the beldam’s cackle gaining weight upon the wind