Look Closely

The house on the corner

Of 34th and Holmes

Always has its TV on

Its curtains drawn

Its people gone

Disappeared?

Into the inner rooms

Stacked?

Inside its basement tomb

No, they're there

Look closely

Watching The Simpsons

And Family Guy

Popcorn piled high

In a perfect wooden bowl

On Halloween

The house on the corner

Of 34th and Holmes

Is cheerfully haunted

A museum of fright for kids

But with light and love and color

It doesn't scare as much as inspire

One to look elsewhere

For death, for fear, for ghosts

The popcorn is Jiffy Pop

From a stove not a microwave

Most prefer the microwave

The mother, the one in the chair (look closely)

Prefers the stove

She called it love at first sight

When she met her late husband

At the Minnesota State Fair

By the milkshake barn

Far from the haunted house that truly haunts

She walked with him

Slow and deliberate

Down the aisle two years later

With his casket 12 years after that

He left three kids and a big fat cat

The popcorn bowl has a shelf of its own

Look closely, everyone's home

April 16, 2006

(thanks Google Earth)