Poetry

Our House

The Devil comes with a bag of arsenic to sprinkle in the cracks

around the door. No one can come in or come out, everyone

is trapped. If you were to take a picture of the world outside

the window, the children playing outside,  the birds singing on the line

the women hanging and folding their wet and dry laundry

you might be tempted to press your lips against the line of white powder

inhale and swallow the dry poison with the knowledge

that even a convulsive death is better than exposing the members of this house

to sunshine. Even the Devil doesn’t want us to go outside:

this line of arsenic is a warning sign to those who might come inside

a deal with God to keep all the little secrets in here from coming out.

                                                                                   ~Holly Day

                                                                                      Minneapolis, MN, USA

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