From the ongoing Songs of Childhood

mystery and hot chocolate

shared rooms, narrow beds and unquiet places
night wise sounds that easily torment
raw breaths, loosely opened windows bring
cold

when alien, exotic noise ratchets on those
uncomforting walls, brickey and dusty
odd uneven row upon row, crumbled
sometimes

frank walks on stone floors, jimmy on
wood, both on the look, the watch, making
their summons, driving in dreams for
the out

billy's caught in the old song, sharp, or
minored, he can't change the key, escape
the octave of his birth, a casual after
thought

old houses tire easily, afraid of people
watching for despair, keen eye, laughing
with their money, carefully woven
clothes

but they have a duty, when children
find them home, want some refuge
have a purpose against idle passers
winds

parents can be fickle, forgetting in their
ways, leave joy outside the garden gates
or follow roads that wind and torment
away

wally keeps some vigilance, dark-eyed
dances on the roof til dawn, makes small
mumbles to the bees, the wasps, old black
flies

so turn the days, so wait the children
where they lay, where they mark their hours
well within that mystery where you leave
hot chocolate

and forget