9/2-the fox's bride

I'm not one of those people who can read great poetry and sit back and appriciate it. No, great poetry makes me want to pick up my pen and write something of my own. I've had to read Anne Sexton's Transformations for a women's lit class and I'm considering making a shrine to her next to my shrine of Sylvia Plath. Since Transformations is pretty much recreations of classic fairy tales, I decided to do one on that vein, only mine is based loosely on the nursery tale "the Gingerbread Man"
It doesn't even compare to Anne's work, but here it is:

The Fox's Bride

As soon as my feet announced their arrival
in the quiet fanfare of a dog whistle,
you heard me.

A year ago I'd been in your corner of the woods,
flinching my way through life.
You saw me and instantly wanted to gobble me up
as neatly as a boiled egg.

Though you saw my invisible escort
his kisses glowing purple under the blacklight
smears I couldn't wash off.

So you waited
eating beetles and spitting dirty words
flicking your tail like blue stove flames.

You gathered your blueprints and with your tiny eyes
clicked them into your brain like Morse code
even I couldn't hear my own body being telegraphed.

So I ran, picking off only the tiniest pieces.
I even gave a woodsman one of my currant eyes
because of how he looked in flannel.

But I kept running until I met a stream
and I knew I couldn't cross.
I knew I was flat enough to soften like cold cereal
and laugh as minnows nibbled at my feet.

Then your arrived like a red submarine
and let me sit on the tip of your tail
high enough to see the buzzing neon and girls in white.

Once you let me cross the whole way, just as an experiment.
You let me pilgrimage to see my parent-gods
and the oven where my belly swelled brown.
To see the gun which drew on my smile.

There no one touched me.
No one fed my addiction.
So I replaced my gumdrop buttons with extra strength Tylonol
and out of the hemisphere of the window the woodsman stood
with a waxy rose floating over his head.

So I climbed on your back
because I didn't like getting my hair wet
and you can guess what that led to.
I climbed into your mouth and danced with your velvet tongue.

Just like every Thursday night thereafter
where you would come gather me in my red dress
you'd buy me a gin and tonic and lick the nutmeg off my skin.
You'd watch me dance with the seven dwarves
an estranged princess, some stray tattooed fairies
but you'd get your paws tangled in my hair
and drag me backward.
By then I knew better: gingerbread girls are meant to be eaten
after all.