From One Book Lover

Celebrate Halloween properly with this amazing poem, courtesy of  poets.org . Bats unveil themselves in dark. They hang, each a jagged, silken sleeve, from moonlit rafters bright as polished knives. They swim the muddled air and keen like supersonic babies, the sound we imagine empty wombs might make in women who can’t fill them up. A clasp, a scratch, a sigh. They drink fruit dry. And wheel, against feverish light flung hard upon their faces, in circles that nauseate. Imagine one at breast or neck, Patterning a name in driblets of iodine that spatter your skin stars. They flutter, shake like mystics. They materialize. Revelatory as a stranger’s underthings found tossed upon the marital bed, you tremble even at the thought. Asleep, you tear your fingers and search the sheets all night. by Paisley Rekdal, from The Invention of the Kaleidoscope, 2007

On All Hallow's Eve, I gave this poem to every trick-or-treater who came to my door, as well as every one who walked within bounding distance of me. Requiescat         Tread lightly, she is near         Under the snow,         Speak gently, she can hear         The daisies grow.                  All her bright golden hair         Tarnished with rust,         She that was young and fair         Fallen to dust.                  Lily-like, white as snow,         She hardly knew         She was a woman, so...