Who could resist those gumdrop
eaves, those icing gutters, pink
wafer shutters and doors, shrubs
of spun sugar, those licorice windows
and that delicate black cracker chimney?
Who indeed. No one. Everyone
who stopped, even if only to visit,
however briefly, wished they could
call it home, wanted to possess
such a finely sprinkled chocolate lawn.
But sooner or later, sweetness fades:
inside, there’s only a blazing stove,
a blazing iron oven and a wicked and
starving witch, wishing she wasn’t
so always alone, wasn’t always so lost
in the deep and darkening woods,
far from her cat and her coven,
trying in vain to fill her emptiness
with a couple of wayward children
fattening in cages in the corner.