children grow in other people's houses
collecting bits and pieces of nuance and unrhyme
sponging feelings left in turbid air to dry
no wonder to be left alone to fend
with latch unkeyed, they wander through
blank hallways tripping over unmet
obligation, horrid disciples of impotent
gods, leftover sympathies strained by
circumstance, immobilized, till one day
the leaking of stagnant water pa**es through
the crevice in the center of the floor.