Obsession: Sestinas in the Twenty-First Century

Sestina in Red

40 RAFAEL CAMPO Sestina in Red There are six stories humans recognize. Just six. The story in which boy meets girl. The story someone once tried to invent. The story critics see within the story. The story of Little Red Riding Hood. The story nobody ever forgets. There is another one, which I forget. Look in my eyes, see what you recognize. I’m the lost boy, Little Red Riding Hood— I’m the little boy who thinks he’s a girl. The teacher doesn’t understand my story. “A story is not something to invent,” a famous critic declared. We invent excuses, we memorize lines, forget them later. Always the same damn story: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl—recognize the pattern here?—boy realizes girl was never his Little Red Riding Hood. Big, bad wolves eat Little Red Riding Hood in a version of the story I invent. Or, the big bad wolf is really a girl! The story everyone always forgets is like the standard form we recognize. Recall there is a story in the story; or, every lie is an attempted story. Our heroine Little Red Riding Hood must pay for the lies we won’t recognize. The rape metaphor the critic invents is like the memories we can’t forget. We tell the same story to little girls: Once upon a time there was a bad girl who tried to tell her side of the story. “Please,” she implored, “you must never forget.” I pretend I’m Little Red Riding Hood so I can get lost in the woods, invent the wolf so I don’t have to recognize truths we’d all like to forget. The wise girl will recognize it’s just that same old story Little Red Riding Hood always invents. ...