Cautionary

gingerbread house the gingerbread house

the peppermint bark, the gum drop crenellations

the sugar glaze on the windows...adorable, the nibbling mouse

marzipan can you imagine?

and you've been starving for so long

and the gingerbread house came along

oh what oh what could go wrong

the little blue birds trill

already you're snacking on a sugar loaf brick

there must be some trick! the badger warns

some rose with thorns some haunted lemon drop sill

but you close your ears with a will

oh surely it must be God

who planted this house in this here fudge cake sod

to get me out of the wintry ditch

so in you go without a glitch

and the witch is there with plates of deli

sandwiches, corned beef on rye oh my oh my

and cherry danish too thick with Montmorency cherries

and pastry puffed inside:

exactly the creamy crumbly cheese you longed for

in your dreams oh please pass me the mustard.

and after that, the custard...

a few days pass at last you find

the shoo fly pie and the daily grind

the sweet locked door from the inside

and you cry

because you understand

a gingerbread house

stuffed entirely with flan or with a chimney

of brownies construed

can be the trap designed for you

can be the trap designed for you

mary angela douglas 12 april 2021