All Fall Down

A woman dreams of a house of cedar
and glass. The clocks in this house
all strike a different hour. She hangs
her feathered mask on the wall.

A man stands on a crumbling bridge,
looking down at the river and its city
of stones. He moves toward, then away
from a decision.

The woman no longer eats sugar or salt.
She has carefully folded her pleasures
and stored them away in her dome-topped
trunk. The man knows there are unlucky

places, corners where cars collide and business
follows business into failure. The rainforest,
breathing green, creeps toward the clearing
and the red-roofed house.