not jack-o'-lanterns

sorry, love,

i've been carving them

in my sleep again

i think

the cucumber ones look like

one long smile, kind of weird but

still edible enough, and they don't drip

everywhere like the tomatoes

which are awfully squirty, honestly

kind of deflate before they're finished

and bananas and avocados turn brown

too quickly to be worth the trouble

but i keep finding them opened

and massacred, lumps of quickly-turning

mush with messy features carved

into them, all the same

more like clawed, some days,

as if i haven't even bothered with the knife,

and sometimes missing bites,

as if i've gotten hungry in the middle,

forgotten my purpose, decided

a snack was the order of the evening

what is happening here?

am i so desperate to remember

your face that i'm drawing on anything

that might hold a shape?

nothing that a candle will fit inside yet

there's no light here, my love,

though we haven't reached

Samhain yet, so give it another

night and let's hope for a pumpkin