To The Wolf House

over far they come on bikes
in skirts and leggings
with long hair, short,
spiky and shaved
carrying their books
and their elegaic hopes 
to the Wolf house
to see where the wolf dined
and who he ate
and who came first
for after dinner
there was a race
to the bookshed
where the books
were all chopped up
and neatly stacked
with one end showing,
and if you tilt your head
you can read the runes
of how she suffered
with her madness
for her genius,
denied by men
an education
she learnt enough,
too much to know
who was her oppressor
and what was weighing down
her thoughts and freed her flighty body,
suddenly released from a great restraint,
anchored like an air balloon
by Victorian ironwork
she suddenly broke free
and floated off,
filling her coat with ballast,
she walked into the waves
and said goodbye.

and so they come
by the ups and downs
their long coats flapping
for women's sufferage
goes on still
they fill their sacks with stones
and books and images of light,
stuck in that awful moment
wondering who was the wolf
and what he ate for dinner.