Gretel's Brother The land is barren of choice Killer frosts and silent fields No yields, no meals No feeling in her fingers Except when Hansel holds her hand He's lead her through the detritus Deft and stealth to keep them safe In the peril of abandonment His methods are a contraband But his eyes glitter in blackness Reflecting Gretel's open wells Like constellations' designations Tangled in nucleic strands Two in exile, two convicted Too innocent for fear to linger He devises their salvation She executes perfection To send their anthropophagist to hell And break the curse of love-starvation Eleventh hour victory Cloud nine in their relief Emerging with a lantern's glow To sojourn along the lanternleaf Huddled underneath a shared manteau.