A photograph of four. Teeth glistening, A haunting ivory Dusted in years Of quiescent hanging. The night trembles As lightning caresses The horizon into flames Birds screech in diquietude at the storm of a decade Uprooting a run down mansion That has loved and lost its days. Often,the rain spills Through the crevices Onto the carved frame. Tonight the dark whistles, A sombre melody To the bright eyed Jill. Clad in a polka dot red, she stares at a lady With the same shade Of chestnut curls. An archaic banyan, Loses the anchor of earth Leaning in to shatter Some stained glass. With a night sky for eyes Starred over in tiny freckles Johnny grins a feckless crescent As drops splatter onto his desert hair. The family sways in reverence To the storm of a decade Portrait of some forgotten May Shivers and rubs in friction Against a forgotten place. Some wires, they tangle and twist Some sparks,ignite the damp wood Of a house, of four and maybe more. The lady and the gentleman In an ugly bermuda and a straw hat In a beautiful summer dress Embrace their progeny, In the storm of a decade. The sheer moth eaten curtains Burn in a hunger for sabotage The rain pitter-patters Over the ashes of a half burnt house. The fire rages against the nonchalance Of a silver rectangle with eight eyes. Only a fire as mighty could celebrate A pretty mansion that sleeps Through the chaos of most hurricanes. The photograph takes a last swing And ends up on the mahogany orange. They smile through the heat That shatters their castle of glass They smile in a holocene blue An offering at the altar Of the melancholy mansion That has kept them smiling As it fell into a state of subtle disrepair As the nights got darker Outside the frail walls.