Halloween Grief

a dead dad poem

I decorate for Halloween on the anniversary of your death

and contemplate if you still exist while draping wire-hanger ghosts

on the shrubs in the front yard.

The phantoms have weird little orgasmic faces on the white cloth

and an orangey dried leaf floats down landing at my feet.

Have I grown tired of ghoulish things?

Later, Matt suggests The Lion King to watch and I start crying.

“What’s wrong?” “The dad dies!” I plea, s

o we turn on Ghostbusters instead.

And that’s how grief goes,

it trudges through my autumnal veins at the same time the theme starts singing, “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts”.