Opening Ceremony
Despair! Our jack-o'-lantern isn't out.
He's still inside the kitchen. "All the other
neighbors have lit theirs," we nag our mother.
She drops a match--the third, now--with a shout.
The doorbell rings. "The sun is barely down!"
she scolds us. "There's an etiquette, you know!"
We do, but nothing, NOTHING, is more slow
than dusk on Hallowe'en. Just ask this clown.
No time to hear his "Trick or treat!" I shove
some candy in his pillowcase, then slam
the door. I almost miss my mother's "Damn!"
She'll never light it, coming from above!
Again, the bell. My sister groans. "Your turn!"
I bark, in crisis mode. Perhaps beneath...
between the stringy boogers in his teeth...
we might persuade the candle-stub to burn.
I find a chopstick: "Sideways! Poke it in!"
We light the end and thread it through a slit
of toothy maw. So close...so close...it's lit!
Let Hallowe'en officially begin!
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