Hansel and Gretel
child victims of second time marriage
unloved
and unwanted by stepmother
father controlled by a powerful woman – a fairy story.
Love abandoned to the forest
returned by pebble trail
via misfortune
and death
to love.
I admired the house
she took a sip of wine
said she had built it with her father
he being good at that sort of thing.
A standard jigsaw house
prefabricated, dropped on site
made beautiful by his craft
wooden ceilings
wrap around decks
panorama windows.
Just before job’s end he fell ill
dying just after completion
just after connecting drainage umbilical
just at summer’s end.
Before winter displaced autumn
from where ankles of floor meet earth
a finger stream of water.
As an engine’s first stray from melody
is classified unimportant
or flicked undeserving of attention
the trickle was dismissed as growing pains
it did
the trail had to be followed
beneath the floorboards
past piles
past joists
to where tributary drains delta
wedged carefully between sump and framing
a bottle of wine
“love Dad.”
For the back story click Backstge
Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry 