Hansel

to

Gretel
It keeps coming, that night in the woods—

a strip of light among the trees,and each time the moon a different color.

It haunts me too.

It’s as if our small theory of happiness

had been irretrievably lost,

stamped out

just as our father stamps out the fire.
And it returns, electric.
Perhaps this, too, is a theory of happiness—

imperfect, damaged

as all our ideas of perfection are.
A cold clutch of unholy fear

marring that small lick of sweetness.