What They Know
by Adrienne J. Odasso
The world thinks me a villain, but what do they know? True, their children are missing. Oh, yes, they know. Have Alice's parents thought to check the rabbit-hole? Might have been that careless gardener, for all they know. And what of Wendy and her pack of little brothers? Window-washers are guilty, leave latches undone. They know. Even Little Red's jaunt in the woods is suspect: Mum and Dad just sent her off, secure in what they know. Can a mother show her daughter the path to Paradise, where perilous creatures will teach her all that they know? Can a father force open his son's wayward eyes to realms of horrors that will show him what they know? Adventures are needful things, easiest to miss when blinded by cheats and comforts -- what they know. And at the heart of my tale, the root of all evil, is this: the trick to what they know, Child, is what they don't. You know.
Adrienne J. Odasso is currently completing her Ph.D. in English at the University of York (UK). Her poetry has appeared in a number of publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including Strong Verse, Aesthetica, Sybil's Garage, Succour, Farrago's Wainscott, The Liberal, Mythic Delirium, Jabberwocky, Cabinet des Fées, Midnight Echo, and Not One of Us -- with new work forthcoming in Illumen, Dreams & Nightmares, Orbis, and others. Her short fiction has appeared in Behind the Wainscott and Expanded Horizons, as well as in the Ruins Terra anthology from Hadley Rille Books and the Needles & Bones anthology from Drollerie Press. Her first full poetry collection, Lost Books, will be published by Flipped Eye Press in April 2010. Her first print chapbook, Devil's Road Down, is currently available from Maverick Duck Press.
She says, "my favorite fruits have got to be blueberries. My grandfather has kept blueberry bushes ever since I was small, and to this day, sun-warmed blueberries from my grandfather’s garden are the most wondrous taste in the world!"
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