Bare-arm bearable when light winks through rheumy eyes,
but slow grey stealth brings plucked-goose flesh
on the howling.

In the teeth of it, the house cracks its knuckles and makes taut
its balustrade against a slobbering at the windows,
let me in licking at the sills.

Whole branches lose their grip,
recyclables paradiddle down the road.
Until my what big ears and tail brush hush.

All the better to fetal and hide
then cut open its belly and find me inside.

© Saradha Koirala from Wit of the staircase (Steele Roberts, 2009)