this is my world,

green and warm and hard to get into.

did you come past the dogs at the gate?

amazing.

I have a thousand hiding places

under leaves and in

tree knotholes,

under acorn caps.

you might not find me

and I and the dogs can run in

the neighbor’s unmowed lot

and laugh at you.

I bought a teacup the other day

yellow and shaped like a flower;

you may drink out of it if

you feel you must

(it’s poison!).

through the drain pipe

there’s a door that leads to my

house in a shining glass bottle

where I live with my family,

my baby with breath like old cobwebs

who has never seen the sun,

my son with brown curls

and secret potions for turning invisible,

my husband, the dark man with an ax

who goes out at night

and whispers with the trees.

if you bother us we will all

melt away like dust.

by Cher Bibler