Smiling and spectral in the sharp chill autumn air
we dark forms sit in silence,
black nightmare costumes over thermal underwear
like flesh hiding the skeleton.

Here at our lair we wait,
red cellophane in the porchlight hell-lighting us.
Our chairs flank the brass urn, 
repository of snakes, spiders, eyeballs
all made of plastic, and colorful wrappers
with apportioned sweetness.

We await the bait takers, the thrill seekers, the daring,
the little inductees into the pageantry 
of the day of witchery and death.

Out on the road, a family pauses
and mother, father stand there 
as do the remote mountains 
where the gods reside untouchable, immovable,
and they gesture to our house.

Their daughter looks to us,
one of us garbed as a faceless spectre
the other as the king of demons.
She sets her foot on the concrete walkway,
cringing, and with the measured shaking steps of fear and care
creeps alone to her doom.

Locking her small glittering eyes 
to the impassive visages of masquerade
she inches towards the fiery glare 
and suddenly cries out
to us–to us!

[i]“I’m SCARED!”[/i]

We smile bone deep under flesh, under masks, and nod.

Feet darting like little feathers
she reaches our porch stairs, 
and her tiny hand darts out to seize her prize
without entreaty or trickery.
With fistful of plastic skeleton and chocolate she retreats,
never looking back,
and our hearts blaze against the biting air and passing years 
and scent of dying leaves.

Only the brave deserve the good candy.