Devotion

We have these miniature houses.
Sometimes at night
I arrange them on the glass table.
A single bulb is lit overhead
And I am alone.

In one house, a woman stares.
In the other, no lights are on.
I walk my hand between them
On two fingers with black nails.
It enters a third house,

An invisible house,
And winds up a spiral staircase.
On the roof, it jumps.
The woman screams,
The dark house lights up.

It falls and falls, but stops
Half-an-inch from the glass.
Then I take down that little town,
And put myself to bed
In an otherwise empty room.