Shawna Lenore Kastin
Red
She was like cream, they thought,
new snow and the white buds of spring.
She would never follow crooked paths
through the trees or bury her head
in a stranger’s lap.
She would never take candy
and leave a trail of crumbs
through the pink fields.
They didn’t know she had an apple heart,
scarlet and thumping, sharp
and luscious as a kissed mouth.
They didn’t see the fur bristling
under yellow curls, the tail
tucked under her skirt,
the teeth hungry for biting.
They were watching for clean red
hoods and baskets full of bread.
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Shawna Lenore Kastin is a poet, singer and corsair in training. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and her poems can be found in Mythic Delirium and Goblin Fruit. Her latest CD, a collection of Portuguese poems set to music composed by her father, Darrell Kastin, is called Mar Português (Portuguese Sea). You can find out more about her music and writing on her blog https://shawnalenore.wordpress.com/. She is currently attempting a novel about faerie revolutionaries. Pray for her.
