Fangs drip at the eaves—
winter has bite, cold snapping
on flesh and bone,
and the house will devour
any who stumble across
its threshold, any who seek
respite in its empty rooms.

From attic to cellar, cobweb
stories tangle unfinished
and spider corpses curl,
spindly former guests
discourteously decomposing
beyond the reach of brooms.

Night lets old sadness in
and shadows crawl between
corners, echoes of ghosts
caught in the house’s teeth
resonating in a minor key
deeper than mortal hearing,
a shiver set to music.

Families dreamed
of this place, of shaping its rooms
into habitat, home, but once time
leaves a house to the dead,
its will becomes a wild thing
full of hunger, each window
and doorway a gaping mouth.

A house that has teeth
never has to worry about loss
or loneliness. A house
with teeth makes its own place
in the world, its hunger
a rattle of glass, a footstep
thump on decaying stairs.