My nights this time of year are made of
Home-made cemeteries and their hundred lights
Laughing in the forest made of
Bony twenty-sided dice
The candy corn tree and strings
(both web and metal)
Of an open mic echoing in halls I once walked
My own breath becoming fog in
The lamplit snow falling as we passed out candy from
An antique plastic pumpkin
Watching together as skeletons dance in gourds
Every porch lined with grinning faces
Their night-sky mold interior lit by electric candles
The sky clearing just in time to see the Hunter’s
Moon hanging in those last moments of running
In the dark, in my mask, in the cold, content
I will wish everyone I know and those I pass
That feeling of being at home in all this
My ideal is to be a worm-infested caramel apple
Hoping to be sickly sweet and full of life
Sometimes I worry I make a ghost of myself
But tonight, I get to come back
And this time, I’ll remain a little longer
