Of course he'd give her real life if he could,
but all his trying hasn't born success
-- despairing at his childless wife's distress,
he hacks his wife a figure out of wood.
At once it does the job: it makes her smile.
She hugs it and starts knitting it a dress,
her husband sighs at her new cheerfulness,
and laughs when she prunes twigs with her nail file.
But then its knots form frowns. It turns hostile.
A gaping hole starts begging them for food
with screeches that become a flow of bile.
It quickly takes to meat. The cat's pursued,
gobbled up like peanuts, bones in a pile.
Its parents run like rabbits. Both get chewed.