Bewitched

And now for something a little different . . . 

     
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  Pumpkins

They deceive us.  And we them.

Carving our kids’ whims into

their plump & gusty flesh,

handfuls of scooped seeds

mounding the newspaper-strewn

floor, bent to the scarred oilcloth

saved from the year before,

we huddle in the circle of their

scent — acrid & still — blades

tracing grins already inked into

their bland & swollen skins

that we might alter, always, if

we dare — slight frenzy, grimace,

calm — by one swift slice or angle

of the wrist.  Our kids, all goggle-

eyed, watch on.  And on we carve,

refining lines — the razor’s edge

of their gapped teeth — not

quitting where we might, now

hardly conscious that we carve

for them . . . .  Finished now.   

  

They stare, queer, droll, triangle-

eyed, crescent mouths agape.

Our kids squeal with delight.  

Days beyond festivities, the

neighborhood grown calm 

again in chill fall’s leafless time,

they lean from the porch ledge,

dull orange, spent, features

caving in & turning pulp.  We 

watch them now the most,

& feel them kin.  Their smiles

as they rot, become more real.

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Dan Stryk's X-ray







"Pumpkins" first appeared in The Southern Humanities Review, 
and later in Dan’s first full-length volume of poems,The Artist 
and the Crow (Purdue University Press). This revised 
version will be appearing in Back to the Source: Selected 
Poems & Parables [San Francisco Bay Press, 2018].