She walks the ash-woods looking for ashwood. She and her hatchet fill her sack with sticks,
some knobby here, some thin and some very thick. A white crane flies above the canopy. In the
streets, she walks through a crowd of kids with a ball; she clutches to her bundle. A cat runs out
as soon as she’s home, and two run in before her. The fire is out and in window light she begins
to whittle her wood. Bark and shavings cover the floor, and her bare knees below her skirt. Into a
falice she carves each branch, with different knots and bends and boreholes of beetles. Along the
mantle she lines them to dry and she sleeps until the men come by. After dark, one by one, the
men hidden by hoods, come by to buy from her the cocks she has made from the trees in the
woods.