Halloween Haunts: The Last Night of October by Marge Simon

The Last Night of October

The last night of October

is one of crickets,

loud and soft, blending

with a yellow gray sky,

a chill wind rising,

while down the street

children in costume

parade from house to house.

But ours is dark.

A door slams.

My wife’s thin face,

distorted with hate,

breath stinking of gin,

that shy pretty girl

I took to the altar

so many years ago,

out she goes to the car.

(about the brakes –

I’d fixed them just for her)

She revs it up, and charges

into the rush of passing traffic,

a shriek of tires, a scream —

headlights on broken glass,

an asphalt mirror

When I hear the sirens,

I light the candle in

my beautiful pumpkin.

-Marge Simon

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY: Marge offers a copy of SWEET POISON, 2014, Dark Renaissance Press by myself and Mary Turzillo: “A concert of close harmonies from two disturbingly compatible talents-two minds with a single (sick) thought, though stunningly diverse ways of illuminating it. From Alice and Wonderland to Lady Macbeth, poets in residence to time travelers in trouble, Simon and Turzillo offer readers a unique poetic mind game. Or maybe a mind field. Whatever your sweet poison, it’s probably here.” –Ann K. Schwader, Author of TWISTED IN DREAM & Stoker Award Finalist

MARGE SIMON’s work appears in publications such as Strange Horizons, Niteblade, Daily Science Fiction, Pedestal Magazine, and Dreams & Nightmares. She has won the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Rhysling Award and the Dwarf Stars Award. www.margesimon.com