My toddler says Halloween like
hollow-ween, babyhood fading
faster than daylight. This year,
I am the jack-o-lantern
sliced open, seeds and pulp discarded
hollowed, not hallowed
or perhaps a better word
is barren
sound echoing
meaning, cold and empty, the r
reverberating through space.
Not like womb
which — listen —
mimics a heartbeat
the Doppler’s sound:
womb womb womb.
When we carve
the actual jack-o-lantern
I save the seeds for roasting
but then night arrives
with its many dishes and discarded
socks. The bowl of wet
innards still sits on the counter
and I toss them into the compost bin,
let them fall away like days in
this month I can barely remember.
One day they’ll be fertilizer,
something in which something
else might grow.
–
Claire Taylor is the author of multiple chapbooks, including Mother Nature and One Good Thing. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Little Thoughts Press, a literary magazine for young readers. Claire lives with her family in Baltimore, Maryland, in an old stone house where birds love to roost.