"Courtship."
This is the story about the castle cut off from the town,
about the way the shadow of the kitchen table
moves when I look at it too long.
It might almost be breath.
This is about the voices of the forest, the strange language
of cutlery I set myself to learn.
It passes the afternoon.
I'll live here until I'm tired of it.
Then I'll allow him in.
Enter, Beast, I'll say, and, Beast, hide from me
while you're in my house.
I'm not used to company.
I turn off the lights to make the search last longer.
In the dark I have no beauty.
When I find him, I know he will speak
to me in words I know already--
lonely, eat.
The two of us, alone with our forks and our fortress.