The kids of the neighborhood have come for
Halloween, and gone, and I look after
after the soap on other windows than
only these dirty, look, and where
for another costume, in exactly this same, other time. Legs are unclear, eyes,
hands scraped on
broken crates, unpacked
in this other house, Halloween night moved in — the same night as was always ended turned inside out
and the loneliness of the year piled out
over the same bare floor as this,
the Lonely Night, the Celebration of
unquiet dead, of dead still
going—or simply always in my head
of absence. Jackolanterns bloom up
the tendrils the fire escapes the walls
Outside the walk about of kids
as in this overheated bare room
only to not walk about,
and the jackolanterns of grinning
and stupid old wars, come on again
and light and walk about to catch
in those rotten open teeth
all those who can and walk at all Through the same windows
and the soap on mine, on my
steps the kids again and I’m
not even drunk, give them candy again and sit, living,
for tomorrow, even rainy, when
those jackolanterns will be out and gone.

— 1 Nov 62

Originally published in White Wall Review 40 (2016)