The Adoption

Child:

Why are your hands so long and lean, mother?
Why are your eyes so bright?
That were stone-dull at height of day, yet gleam so in the night?

Mother:

Shust quiet thy grunt, my piglet prince
Taut as a sausage in thy skin,
Plump as a gut well stuffed with mince,
Soft, sweet and succulent within.
Oh, how I’d sniffed your crackling meat,
Burst on the ur-flame, spitted whole,
Had I ta’n time to cook and eat,
Before I felt ye little soul.

Child:

Why do talk so strange, mother?
Why is your tongue so black?
That was so red before we walked, this long and lonesome track?  

Mother:

Shust quiet thy quack, my duckling duke
Feathered with flesh as pluckin’ bird
Toothsome as moist fresh-water fluke
Whose tastiness I long have heard,
From troll-talk offered up by those
Who never found a foundling lost,
Who never counted out its toes
Who never flinched at feeder’s cost.

Child:

Why came we to this place of stones, mother?
Why here, which all must shun?
If there’s a secret I must know, why can’t it be by Sun?

Mother:

Shust quiet thy moos, my little calf,
Thou knows right well we are nay kin
If I now showed you but the half,
How soon would feast or fear begin?
Here I must leave you, from these stones
Turn thrice around and back go thou,
Spare no attention to the bones,
They’re but the lost pig, duck or cow.

Child:

Why did you love me, mother?
Who had so much to lose,
And having done so, do not go, why should I have to choose?