empty houses

each rock thrown through a window strikes a
face that once peered out     each nosey child
disturbs a family's meal   his dog barks at
the lovers on their bed
   now dead

Christmas past and birthdays ring up through
broken floors     mice huddle in the baby's
crib, and strangers   without knocking   stroll
through the doors

old houses

with toppled gates and drying wells
the tenants gone   (those lives they harbored
lost to death)

their fate,
to parch and shrivel into hapless shells