She-Wolf

“But I’m just a pretty little lamb,”

The Wolf said sheepishly.

As the flock stood warily off

And stared suspiciously.

 

“As you have astutely observed

My coat is quite bloodstained

And one of you remarked it looked

Like his late aunt Adelaide’s

Who disappeared a while ago

Into the forest shade

With as terrified and anguished scream

As a sheep ever made -”

 

“Instead of such hostility,”

The wily Wolf then said;

“You should be welcoming me

With jubilation instead -

For I am poor aunt Adelaide

Returned back from the dead!”

 

No sooner was the wily Wolf

This startling truth done voicing

Than the whole wooly multitude

Erupted in rejoicing

With much bleating and horn-ramming

And shoulder-high aunt-hoisting.

 

Now, I know you’re thinking,

“Hold on here, what are these folks about?

Surely someone pointed out

The razor-tooth lined snout?

Didn’t anyone find it strange that she

Had come back from the deep?”

Well, the Wolf was quite a good actor

And besides, these are sheep.

 

Very soon the entire flock

Came to love Aunt Adelaide

She regaled the lambs with chilling yarns

Of the treacherous Wild;

Of the dark and unrepentant wood

Where the savage things reside.

 

“Why, Adelaide used to be so weird!”

Said the sheep among themselves.

“Quite the loner, roaming off

And bleating to herself!

Guess there’s nothing like the Afterlife

To break one out of one’s shell!”

 

But soon came over the flock’s mood

A startling metamorphosis -

Their lambs would disappear, only to

Turn up as mangled corpses!

“This,” they said, “must be the work

Of dark, external forces!”

 

Unanimously they voted

For brave Aunt Adelaide

To lead the effort to contain

The muttony genocide.

“I solemnly swear,” she howled and growled

“To never leave your side!”

 

Day by day, to the sheep’s dismay

Things seemed to get no better

More mangled, ravaged bodies turned up

And the lambs kept getting lesser.

“We’re doing all we can,” said their trusty leader

As she grew fatter and fatter.

 

“I’m bringing Special Forces in

To deal with this daunting threat -”

She said, introducing more wolves

Into her kitchen cabinet.

 

Soon enough the lambs ran out

And the news was spread with fear

That the elderly and sickly sheep

Had began to disappear.

“The enemy is at our door!”

Said Adelaide, with tears.

 

Soon, she and her friends became so wide

The fat was dripping from their thighs

They could hardly support their own weight

Or see out of their eyes.

Adelaide, she got too fat

To fit in her disguise!

 

One day as she addressed the flock

She gave a mighty belch or two;

(That afternoon there were reports

Of the disappearance of some ewes)

The dreadful sound travelled around

Of a most terrific tear -

Aunt Adelaide was in tatters

And a very well-fed Wolf stood there!

 

The scandal! The outrage!

It raged on for weeks!

The newspapers had a field day -

You should have seen the critiques!

 

A Commission of Inquiry

Was formed to investigate

The disappearance of sheeple

Numbering twenty-eight

The flock waited impatiently

To learn their leader’s fate.

 

“The Commission finds -” said the head Inquisitor

“According to our jurisprudence

That there insufficient grounds

And inconclusive evidence.

Our leader’s cleared of all charges

And her duties may recommence.”

 

Didn’t she resign though, from the shame?

I hear you ask; for sure,

Adelaide served three more terms

And would have extended her tenure -

 

She’d set up her re-election campaign

She was all set to run

But what she’d run out of was constituents -

She’d eaten every one…