Shape-Shifting Poem by Troy Cochran

October ends in mock-mourning;
Funerary black against a growing cold.

So much has been let go, and still falling;
But the little corpses won't keep to their graves.

The crows are everywhere, invoking midnight come
With their incessant cawing.

October smiles beneath her veil
And doles out treats to trickster Death
In a thousand mocking masks
Mail-calling.

And when these little dead are put to bed,
I, too, will doff the mask
Of a thousand different disguises,
Go out-of-body to trick or treat

And make a mockery of myself
Shape-shifting Death.