2014-10-09 06:00:40
The Last Night of October
The last night of October
is one of crickets,
loud and soft, blending
with a yellow gray sky,
a chill wind rising,
while down the street
children in costume
parade from house to house.
But ours is dark.
A door slams.
My wife’s thin face,
distorted with hate,
breath stinking of gin,
that shy pretty girl
I took to the altar
so many years ago,
out she goes to the car.
(about the brakes –
I’d fixed them just for her)
She revs it up, and charges
into the rush of passing traffic,
a shriek of tires, a scream —
headlights on broken glass,
an asphalt mirror
When I hear the sirens,
I light the candle in
my beautiful pumpkin.
-Marge Simon
TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Marge offers a copy of SWEET POISON, 2014, Dark Renaissance Press by myself and Mary Turzillo: “A concert of close harmonies from two disturbingly compatible talents-two minds with a single (sick) thought, though stunningly diverse ways of illuminating it. From Alice and Wonderland to Lady Macbeth, poets in residence to time travelers in trouble, Simon and Turzillo offer readers a unique poetic mind game. Or maybe a mind field. Whatever your sweet poison, it’s probably here.” –Ann K. Schwader, Author of TWISTED IN DREAM & Stoker Award Finalist
MARGE SIMON’s work appears in publications such as Strange Horizons, Niteblade, Daily Science Fiction, Pedestal Magazine, and Dreams & Nightmares. She has won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Rhysling Award and the Dwarf Stars Award. www.margesimon.com
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