Ghostly Neighborhood's Halloween Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Smoking Christmas trees
With Dave in Fort Lauderdale,
Sharing the same fireworks
From our smoking lips.

My parents drove away Friday morning.
They reached Mississippi before midnight.
Janice is down
For Saturnas wedding,
As Jove chases the bridesmaids into
The neighborhoods of airplanes.
Stewardesses watch their rosy esplanades
Caressing the skies.

And I am high on the south florida
Concrete. For a little while I won't care
How much money I make.Fired
From the school yards, I used
Three cafeteria tables to become
A millionaire by Christmas.


Now my children are waiting as quiet as rabbits
In the Everglades for me to drive home
To tell them bedtime stories. Into the afternoon,
Dave and I toss bottles
Like model planets underneath
The tables making a tiny graveyard
For fairies who cry costume tears
Practicing,
Their petty hearts fluttering in
Anticipation of a ghostly neighborhood's
Halloween