A distraught loner,
a fallen lord,
a desperate woman
came to a humble cottage
in the wood
to ask for refuge.

Who could deny such
a plaintive request?
He was sheltered,
she was fed,
and slowly the cottage changed.

Simple things like a pot disappeared.
At first everyone pretended not to see.
“Where is the pot?” they said, and the poet replied,
“It wasn’t a pot, it was a flower pot.”
“But what happened to it?”
“Flowers pots come and go,” was the reply.

Still, they sheltered the stranger, as they would help any other in need.
And the uncertain, unknown thanked them
for their hospitality. But things continued

to be missing, parts of the house
no longer were there,
and they could not determine
if they ever really had been there
in the first place.

In desperation
they turned on the traveller,
the cipher,
the desperate fallen aristocrat
and said, “Why have you
benighted us?”

In reply, it sang, laughed,
stuttered, growled,
“My words are hungry.”