​BOGEYMAN

By Paola Ferrante

            Every night
            the big bad goes puff and blows
            me down. Every night the same
            voice says you will be inside this always,
            you are made of straw and sticks
 
            and names
of every me I should have been
            but wasn't
 
            with you.
            You will ask the questions. 
            Who's afraid of the inside wolf?
It's only in fairy tales
that you become the prince
           
            not the one who disturbs with a kiss
            for the unconscious. Not the one
            who wants me to pull out my hair,
            let down, so you can come
 
            up, not the one who locks
            doors to blue rooms with a set of keys
            that only unlocks what doesn't need to be
 
unlocked. Not you. What are you doing
for me lately?
            In your stories I do not get to be
the sound sleeping princess,
the happily ever after
girl, golden-haired
            just a letdown the same
 
            voice says you’re lazy, lying there
            in bed, made your house
            of straw, or sticks, inherited
           
            genes. There’s no evidence
it’s that bad, a wolf by any other name
is almost a dog except for centuries
              saying they’re not
 
            but no one believes
when I say I’ve seen you,
wearing the woman swallowed whole
inside the skin of wolves
coming to take sleep
or at least the sheep I’m supposed to count.
            The better
            to eat at you, my dear.        
 
You tell me it's only in fairy tales
            I will ever get to be
            not in someone or other's tower,
            not inside the attic where someone else
chose yellow walls. You say I’ll learn
 
to bear
the story, the one you tell
to frighten children who lie
awake, afraid of shadows
deep in the woods.
 
            In fairy tales
I get to not be
            the bear, you know
            the one in the cage
            adopted by the Polish army
 
the one fed beer and cigarettes
to keep it quiet, marching
            on its hind legs. Upright
            I learn to bear
            your fairy tales
           
            because sleeping dogs can sleep,
            and grinning bears won't stop

---

AFTER MIDNIGHT
​
after Matthew Dickman
​

By ​Paola Ferrante

All my life I’ve danced with the wolf, a long
slow waltz in the dark unwind, a dance of what if I’ve lost
today and maybe there’s no more tomorrows,
at least not from Annie on late night Netflix. There’s no one
to tell to just go to bed. A dance where I forget
about breadcrumbs to lead me back from the ledge
and tonight’s the last night at the end
of the world. When we dance, the wolf and I
it’s into the woods, where glaciers melt and islands drown,
behind backyards of childhood friends
whose baby rooms are painted pink and expectant love, or in dark
lit bars where you and I will meet, in bathrooms
when blue lines won’t change and we’re running
out of time. When we dance, it’s always almost
midnight, but I never turn pumpkin. Maybe it’s better
this way. There is no what if my daughter
will spend her nights thinking how all the stars in the sky
are already gone, or if when she dances at some cousin’s wedding
and everyone hips into each other she’ll sink with her back
against the wall. That’s what wolves do. Blow
you down, even while the song plays she’s a brick house. I’ve tried
going solo. The wolf doesn’t care. He is all
sharp teeth and doors knocked down
at 3 a.m., insomnia spilling
like a bathroom tango when my if refuses
to go to bed. If I dance with a daughter, will she dance
with my wolf? Wear a red coat? Let him lead
like me? Will I step on her feet, take us both to the end
of Stairway to Heaven? If I dance with my daughter
I want to say sometimes your shoes will be too tight
and your life will feel that way too, especially with the heat
death of the universe, and it’s always okay
to weep in the middle of the floor. I want to say
there is no hunter coming to save you
from the pit in your mother’s or grandmother’s stomach
because you don’t need to be saved.
And if the wolf comes                               

---

Paola Ferrante is a woman writer living with depression. Her debut poetry collection, What to Wear When Surviving A Lion Attack (Mansfield Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. She has won Grain Magazine's Short Grain award for Poetry, The New Quarterly's Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award and Room Magazine's prize for Fiction. Her work has recently appeared in The Journey Prize Anthology 32 (McClelland and Stewart, 2021) and Best Canadian Poetry 2021 (Biblioasis, 2021), and she has a chapbook forthcoming with knife| fork| book in Spring 2022. She is the Poetry Editor at Minola Review and resides in Toronto, Canada. Find her at paolaferrante.com or on twitter @PaolaOFerrante.