Dockenhaus and Home

In each room someone is doing something. Grandma declines the paper at the dining table. Baby Sis burns kerosene in the garage. Pop fiddles F.M. dials in the study. Brother wears tan boots to shower. Oh, brother… They don’t come off! My nieces play traffic police in the foyer—one drives, the other polices. Halt! This is a one way. Hallways become highway tunnels. Chase me! Stairs remain stairs. We should put brother back in uniform. Look look look at our dollhouse where, stand here, you pretend there is a wall but there isn’t. Um… Dolls can’t know! They don’t see our hands. We can put them, if you want, we can put them in different ways. My nieces play house in the guest room. Baby Sis sleeps across a range in the kitchen. Brother digs from the attic a bolt-action Mauser. Someone should supervise. Grandma saddles Pop for one good shoulder ride. Git! Pop falls in the salon, is forgotten. Grandma flips through the non-wall and out. Freeze! You’re under arrest, devil dog. Bang! That’s not, that’s not what you call your uncle. Great Grandma calls you devil dog. The girls evoke history. Teufel hund. And? Great Grandma says we’d all speak German if it wasn’t for… Great Grandma will be dead soon. Ooh, I’m telling. Well, I am telling too. Bang! Bang! Shots through the ceiling and my nieces tear off in fits. They would want Grandma in the living room. Shall we sit Pop in his big chair? Yikes, the quiet in this place. Let us put Brother before the television set, turn it on before we go.