Shadow Puppets

Something about us reminds me of houses
Lined up next to each other by force and circumstance
Under surveillance and sharp eyes
Directed at your yard, your walls
Inside your windows
How good it looks for those watching
Which is all that counts

And I think about houses with dead grass
Old cars and broken patio furniture
Of manic figures flitting across the windows
How incoherent, jumbled and messy it seems
How everyone can see your disrepair
About the honesty that has the audacity to be seen

I think about vibrant houses, painted wrong
With outsides and insides that aren’t right
With the wrong plants and the wrong people
That offend you by being so shameless
How they brazenly celebrate their difference
The shadows in their windows so shameless

Then I think about pristine, proper houses
With just the right trappings, the right colours
The right choices and good decisions
Where each step was proper and good
And each result satisfactory and appropriate
The figures in the windows just so

That look of rightness, of a life well chosen
The kind that makes others hum in satisfaction
Of how nice it is to observe from here
Outside, from a distance, not from up close
The shadows in the windows are more comfortable
To watch, to deem good and fitting.

But here’s the trick:

The figures in the windows are puppets
Effigies to console the watchers
To distract them from the cold, lifeless air
They all pretend not to see

Because it's such a lovely house, really
You can see it from the roof tiles
Meticulously lined up in horizontal grins
Clean and gleaming in the sun
Perfectly reflecting the light they're shown

I wonder which one is actually worse
To open the door and see a mess
Clutter and filth and unfinished, raw things
Or to open the door and see nothing
Cardboard furniture neatly lined up
Empty seats for an empty house
Shadow puppets dancing in the windows?

At least one of them looks complete.