Ghouls in the bushes, bones on lawns.
Leaves reach the height of their fire
and the veil between the worlds thins
toward the only day that I am
once again my mother’s child.
Some people avoid this doom-focused revelry –
children’s faces bloody and scarred,
plastic fangs crammed in their small mouths,
spider webs and gravestones in suburban yards.
But it’s the living who can hurt us.
I’m hollow-eyed from too much news,
my family fractured,
democracy unravelling.
Two nights before Samhain.
With such pain this year, might we be allowed
some extra time with our beloved dead?
I eat pomegranate seeds and chant entreaties
to the silent, icy moon.
Wait for the comfort only Mom provides.
Nothing.
Even at midnight, I’m alone
under dull stars, smoke
from distant fires in my throat.
Monsters walk among us
and the veil’s too thick
to let my mother home.