The Woman Who Was Kind to Inscts
(from the West Greenland Inuit tale)

This old woman was left behind
because she didn't even have the strength
to sit in her corner and chew hides for boots.

When it was time for her village to move,
her family said goodbye, giving her only a few insects to eat.
The old woman accepted her death, thinking,

I'm not going to eat these creatures. I am old
and perhaps they are young. Perhaps
some a/these lice are even children.

When she hadn't eaten for a few days
a fox slunk into her igloo. She prepared herself
for the Land of the Dead as the fox bared his teeth.

But instead of eating the old woman,
he simply bit off her clothes, then her skin—
so gently she didn't even feel it.

Her old skin lay around her ankles like a pair of trousers
and when she looked down her new skin was firm
like that of a young woman.

The insects, used to being eaten by humans
who didn't think twice about it,
had asked their fox friend to lend his magic.

When the family returned next summer,
they looked everywhere for the woman's bones—
under piles of rocks, in her favorite cave.

They didn't know she had gone off to live with the insects.
It is said she married a handsome blow-fly
who stayed by her side, forever faithful.

--Denise Duhamel
Copyright © 1994 by Free Lunch Arts Alliance

Other Poets/Other Poems

Anonymous, Issue 17

Antler, Issue 36

Amy Beeder, Issue 16

Boyd W. Bensen, Issue 31

Donna Biffar, Issue 15

Kimberly Blaeser, Issue 27

P. W. Boisvert, Issue 39

Rick Cannon, Issue 28

Jared Carter, Issue 24

David Chorlton, Issue 40

Billy Collins, Issue 1, Issue 18

Steven Coughlin, Issue 39

Philip Dacey, Issue 6

Denise Duhamel, Issue 13

Stephen Dunn, Issue 34

Stuart Dybek, Issue 41

Dave Etter, Issue 14

Norma Hammond, Issue 22

David Hernandez, Issue 23

Susan Holahan, Issue 12

Angela Just, Issue 32

Lisa Kadous, Issue 20

Julie King, Issue 30

Lyn Lifshin, Issue 19

Mary Lucina, Issue 26

Louis McKee, Issue 5

Pamela Miller, Issue 8

Lisel Mueller, Issue 29

Alexis Orgera, Issue 35

James Reiss, Issue 26

Len Roberts, Issue 2

Kristopher Saknussemm, Issue 10

R. T. Smith, Issue 38

Cathy Song, Issue 21

Judith Valente, Issue 37

Charles Harper Webb, Issue 25

Mary Ann Waters, Issue 11

J. D. Whitney, Issue 33

Bayla Winters, Issue 3

Lila Zeiger, Issue 4

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