This is how the wind blows most
October afternoons, now
that you're old enough
to really be properly
scared of all of those creeping
things of this world
which are neither
scarce nor sacred, those shades
that cast nauseatingly
typical shadows,
those mundane wraiths
which are so
overworked and
underfed they've grown stupid—
a thousand thousand thousand
insistent iterations
of the same unimportant
brown autumn leaf
that go scuttling past your sneakers
like failed and abandoned
kites in stilted currents;
the drowsy zombie
bumble bees
tickling your hair like bats
rising blind from their cells
in hell,
not to riot, but quietly
squeak of prosaic dangers
(not enough cash-flow, too much
fat in your diet, et cetera);
and finally, from endless porches,
the sallow leer
of prototypical
jack o' lanterns penetrating,
making you feel
hollow inside,
hollow inside,
guilty—for all the time
you spend thinking
about the immaterial
words of dead poets,
instead of trying
to picture—all your disgruntled still-
living
relatives' faces.
to picture—all your disgruntled still-
living
relatives' faces.
