AMORAK HUEY

Hansel Brings His Grandchildren to See Where the Candy House Once Stood

At last: here. This clearing's welcome resting place
after that burl and thicket and maze of sunless forest.

Familiar birdsong. Cottonseeds spindle toward fading sky.
The odds always were against us, against now,

against all lost children: pennies squeezed in damp fists,
perfect circles through which to limp on crooked legs,

the impressions our flesh carries like a useless map.
Grandchildren, if you worry to see me lost thus

under the weight of memory, may it serve as warning:
peril does not always smell like tobacco

or wear black raincoat and loiter on sidewalks
and some damage does not shake free when you fall in love.

You are still young enough to care about being impolite
but my nonsense sounds like wisdom, so when I brag

about the finely tuned strings of my first girlfriend,
the one with the transparent bed and the pills

and the gambling, trust me that everything is connected.
Take these stones, though they cannot show us the way home -

we are hardwired to keep trophies, the way
we are hardwired to fear flame, the way we all feel

smaller and hungrier when the path begins to dwindle.