One
-In a house of sticks sat a marchioness and two of her 
maids. They went there Sundays.
-Isolde had to be a fancy lady. She had a manor 
specially built for tea.
-Polly was a doll, Wendy a felt horse. They sipped with 
their pinkies up, of course.
-Isolde’s friends would say, in a candid way, that her 
society was improving, most days. 

-Isolde in her hidden house, off in a copse while 
mother slept. Father gone in a pinstriped suit and a 
governess hanging clothes, singing Irish.
-Isolde had a dirty cheek; blackish loam smeared on 
pretty white birch bark and because of the low light, 
stinging, not seeing, ‘twas a splinter buried... 

Two
-In the dappled shade, spinney leaves will fade. They 
hid behind an old wicker chair-seat front gate.
-She must drift outside; dainty, lilting strides, and 
by fairy craft give her teahouse eyes. 

Bridge
-Isolde wants window light! She dislikes parasites! 
Open the walls and oh, my dear, well that smells 
lovely!
-But do you hear the sound of a dead and wood bone 
cracking? There’s a foot upon the ground without and 
the birds have left off laughing!
-Stay within thy castle and mute thy ladies’ thread and 
cotton tongues. Their songs, if sung, would bring the 
broken stick foot hither!
-Another step draws near! Thy ladies shake with fear! 
Don’t make a sound! Tendrils run along the ground, 
they’re searching, searching!
-Is it alive or dead? Does the footfall have a head? Is 
it a face with eyes, and has it spied Isolde small and 
pale with dread?
-And then sepulchral breath slips past teeth all wrong 
from death. That crooked air won’t linger there, it 
drips and drops on Isolde’s hair… 

-Isolde tumbles out and away, gone from the woods and 
into the daylight. She will sip her tea with the 
governess and listen to mother sleeping!
-Isolde doesn’t need a special secret wooded teatime 
retreat! There’s nothing restful about a parlor rank 
with rot and loud with needlefeet!