2011 Issue - Santa Fe Community College

the plane’s vapor trail. They are standing in grain fields,
they look back from stones in the river.
The dead in their masks care nothing for pumpkins.
They cannot be stopped by cobwebs at the door,
they pass through the hanging man in the hallway
and show no interest in paper ghosts tied to the trees.
Their hunger cannot be appeased by orange candies,
witches, sugar skeletons. Their trick is in treating us
to silence, and the dead are generous.
Santa Fe Literary Review 9