Do Not Go Into The Woods

 

The gingerbread house lures us

with walnuts, glacé cherries, icing

but it is thatched with innocents’ hair.

 

There are dark pools,

and bracken arching over lairs

of trapdoor spiders.

 

The witch slips a finger bone

into her apron pocket

before polishing a red apple.

 

Children, a god is watching you

from the saucer eyes of owls,

and your small lives are nothing to him.