Gingerbread House

gingerbread edgings are only the
start--see the velvet curtains
of the interior, your fingerprints on
the silver coffee service on the sideboard, a gift
from your aunt

is it bitter, now, in the winter? how are
the schools?

the felines lounge and stare--
they are not discomfited--they
will still be fed

in the middle of all towns there
hangs the traffic light-go-wait-
stop-green, gold, blood by turns

we wait to be told what to do,
we turn, thick with sleep, to
spill barely formed words upon
the table

we throw the stones, the bones,
upon the creaking floorboards--
they speak, tell their tales, in the night, the
long night and the moon
silvers over the grass, this

accidental working of metals, plucking
the strings there, and there again,
long time gone

the wind plays the grass--sweeter still
when cut and burnt over by the sun