the gourd

as i watch the babe paraders

— in their garish, twinkle facemasks

with their pockets full of tattered plastic wraps —

my cheekbones and their gashes

jagged crooked zig-zag gashes

send a light of flickered fire on their paths

* * *

with a passive sense of promise —

as the guardians, as the mask-less,

standing back and chafing fingers in the gloom—

the darkened, drunken driveway

littered tripping sticking driveway

freezes marching ants to drops of sugared doom

* * *

in the morning, neath the sunrise

— when the goblin masks have fallen

and my sisters, stubbed and blackened, go to waste —

that orange, bitter orange

ghoulish humming faintly orange

flicks across the withering carnage of my face

* * *