the little house where the little mouse
and the minuscule cakes and pies,
the brown town cobblestone rounds
a postman, a tailor, a mackerel snare;
imagine the horror the bloody dead
were, what left home children
and returned meat so beyond recognition.
the little house and little mouse
froze but somehow kept growing old
and small, reduced by grief, dulled
by sunny hours, fields of blue flowers
horse tails that swish, swish, swish.
and the little house shrank and shrank
like a white workshirt drying on a line
and grew too tight, even for the old hearts
that kept time, time, time. nothing fit
not shoes, nor food, nor any of the keys.
you can barely see it now, the old hearts
so small they cannot be heard, nor keep
time. whispers, sawgrass, ash trees at night,
the scuttling feet of mice; school buses
pass without a glance, yards and parks grow by.
