Old Houses

The old, old houses were leaning

at crazy angles to the road.

Here, no women were weaning.

  None have the load

of young children here.

Within these walls, all is dead

and gone.  Only tall weeds peer

through ruins, a rat lifts his head

from his busy work, blinks,

scampers, returns whence

he came.  At night a bat winks

his hunter’s eyes and no fence

guards here, where the garbage stinks.