| This Edition's Poetry |
Halloween
It was Halloween, about 1970
This haunted memory of trick or treat
Me and my boys were out on the hunt
For a sack of sweets to eat.
I had thrown myself together a makeshift costume
Fake blood splashed on sheets from my brother’s bedroom
A plastic derby, a green ghoulish rubber mask
Like the cover of an H.P. Lovecraft paperback.
A kid from up the street named Anthony
About whom everyone used to make fun
Came over the hill in a get-up
That truly surprised everyone
In his mother’s wig and dress, with pumps and nylons too
You could tell by his smile
And the sparkle in his eyes
It was his favorite thing to do.
Then the neighborhood bullies came around
And started messing with his curls
They bitch-slapped him upside the head,
Tore off his nana’s string of pearls.
And I didn’t know what to do
When it all became real.
Anthony was supposed to be a kid to laugh at
Not a human being who would make me feel.
And the pearls went tumbling down the cracks in the sidewalk
The streetlights kept them flashing
In my imagination, I saved Anthony
The bullies’ faces I was smashing.
But I didn’t really do anything
Beneath my mask was the face of a coward
Anthony’s made-up face was streaked with his tears
And the handkerchief he clutched was flowered.
by David Lawton
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