Two Poems

These Two poems were written a few years ago. They are autumn scenes and needed to be shared. Especially because when I took them to my English professor, they were rejected because they were about Halloween and pumpkins and were too cliche. So, yeah. I still like them. Especially All Saints Day. this blog is where I publish what I want!!! HAHAHAHA!!!







One Hundred Shades


Dozens of pumpkins
are turned out,
their smooth faces forward.

Eyeing one hundred shades
of orange,
the boy’s mind moves
from apples, dirt
and plastic spiders.

Pulling his mother behind him
he weaves her through the crowd,
with his hand over hers,
and pulls her fingers across
a cool, rigid stem,
bent like a door handle.

She stoops
and lifts the pumpkin,
darker than the rest,
and balances it
on her hip like a round child.

With his hands,
the boy traces
the seams of the pumpkin,
piecing each segment
and stitching its shape,
naming one shade of a hundred.





All Saints Day

The pumpkin’s wide,
singed jaw
puckers under 5 a.m. frost,
its hollowed eye
fixed past the porch,
on a dog,
ticking in sleep.

The air—
smoked and spiced,
runs up the bone of the
dog’s back,
breaks apart his dream,
and passes through
the lowered gate
of the cemetery.

Several coughs
are heard along the plots.
The dead smother their mumblings
and stretch low,
grasp their bone toes,
and tuck themselves back
in the ground
to watch the
round Jonagolds
drop
into their yard.