This is a poem, which is in three line stanzas.
And the lines are fairly short.
Home Movies.
In my movie, the two lovers sleep in the woods.
Their parents' hammers sound all night as rain.
The man is dreaming about his father's fists,
the woman about her hair.
In the morning, they're shocked at the cage under the oaks.
In your movie, the man's father poke
sticks at the lovers hoping they'll fight.
In mine, the woman's mother offers
gifts her daughter recognizes, barrettes
lost at a school picnic and the small red mitten
dropped once in the snow.
Shall the parents unlock the door sure that the lovers'
sadness will be permanent?
In your ending, the lovers wander free all day
but at dusk the man's father appears
with his hammers erecting the same cage every night
of their lives.
My movie isn't finished.
Sometimes the parents reveal their invisible cage
only at the first death.
Who shall it be?
The woman asking for water, she hasn't time to swallow,
or the man with angina?
Otherwise they grow old, the man stepping
into his father's fishing pants, the woman cutting her hair.