Goldilocks

[thielpoems]

    A little girl called Goldilocks
        was running through the wood
    dressed in green sandals, purple socks
        and her fluorescent hood.

The air was clear, the trees were tall,
        the afternoon was mild;
    she passed a noisy waterfall
        and as she ran, she smiled.

She sped along a path that wound
        past boulders, huge and grey;
    then stopped herself - because she found
        a cottage in her way.

Still puffing, little Goldilocks
        walks up to try the door,
    but stops herself, politely knocks
        then counts to twenty-four.

At twenty-five she pushes through:
        the parlour smells delicious,
    like something that her Dad would brew -
        appealing and nutritious.

It looks like soup. She takes a sip
        from one enormous bowl,
    but it's so hot she burns her lip
        as if she'd licked a coal.

A smaller bowl is strangely cold;
        she tries the tiny one -
    it's perfect! Goldilocks feels bold
        and drinks until it's done.

The next room has a set of chairs
        with elongated backs.
    She sees a snapshot of some bears -
        and then the small chair cracks.

She finds some beds up in the loft
        arranged on timber beams,
    the first too hard, the next too soft,
        the third so good...she dreams.

Meanwhile, the owners of the place
        have seen their wrecked downstairs.
    They reach the loft at jungle pace:
        they are, indeed, three bears.

The girl wakes up and sees the three;
        she draws a shattered breath,
    leaps through a window, hits a tree
        and crashes to her death.

One moral of this story goes:
        "rob houses if you're game,
    but first make sure that someone knows
        the owner's family name."

Another one: "to rob a place
        is not so very scary,
    unless the tenant has a face
        that's oversized and hairy."