The Baby on the Doorstep

The trick-or-treater on the left
looks just as cleft
as Adam’s rib,
the pale bib
spotted with gore.
Opening to him the door
I wonder what weird impetus
might lay behind the costume choice,
and feeling bold I ask him thus.
Across the romper suit he wears
are little plastic lice,
a torn-off oaken latticework
suspended from an arm.
‘I am the boy whose house this was,
and is’, he says with sheer authority.
‘Look in the basement and you’ll see
the rest of my cradle.’