by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2014

—

Tonight your kids dress their hooves and yellow their eyes
like Satan, like Pagans with tridents, like sirens and fallen,
begging for chocolate from strangers and secretly
dreaming of razors or hoping for razors
and wanting a razor
in the chewy black centre
waiting to cut their teeth
tonight
before the moon wanes and the wax pools and the wick is lit
for the slippery parades, the cold-curdled festivals of light.
One more night.
And elders – elder than eighteens – wait
in exhilarating silence
for realistic blood and a knife and a violin scream
and slashers and old Hammers and things that are alive
and wings out the window and living dolls that die
and the strength of the one girl
who reds
the plastic mask man and shames his dull white.
She’ll buy it in the sequel and he’ll be gone in the morning,
climb out from under the rock.
It’s all right.
There’s no fear of damnation tonight.