Hansel and Gretel were picking strawberries
and listening to a bronze cuckoo.
As the forest mist thickened,
Hansel snuggled up to his little sister,
admitting they were lost.
They were the children
of a broom maker who drank too much.
They did not understand that a wife
is to a husband what the husband makes her,
or that even in our misery life goes on.
Squirrels play. Bees forage. Hemlocks bow.
Sitting at the kitchen table, I eat yesterday’s meat,
peas and carrots, with a bowl of rice pudding.
Now that you are dead, my stubborn heart lives.