Halloween: A Poem For Larry—By PJ

Halloween: A Poem For Larry

PJ DeGenaro

Halloween

This is my season, and it always was:

The heavy, fetid summer dead and buried

And something sharp and clean on its way,

All the strength of youth rushing in with the cold air

And here I am, running home late after school

Through the shortening day and lengthening shadows

Sure-footed in the leaf litter

Legs keeping perfect time, arms pumping:

One-two-three-FOUR!

Jacket collar popped, senses quickened

The trees ablaze over the streets

And the sharp smell of smoke on the breeze

Winter is lurking just around the corner:

Something cold, something hard to slam against

And survive.

I like to fight.

I flex my wrist, make a fist.

Now Halloween is back again.

The children running in the street

Aren’t me, or even mine

All the pirates and the princesses

Just ghosts of the past.

I’m standing by the open door

Cradling a bowl of sweets in my arm

They reach in and grab with small, nimble fingers

And flee, screeching.

I feel November creep into my body

The way it creeps into the land

And the night comes on early.

Imagine if the calls of owls, the yips of the fox

Are the spirits of the dead, yowling,

Their sheets tangled in the bare trees

Raccoons scatter the trash for old bones

The moon snags on the roof of the house next door:

A hangnail, painful.

Winter is coming.

I like to fight.

I flex my wrist, make a fist.