Adorably Horror Series – Adrian Slonaker
Halloween, 11:17 p.m.
His maddening muskiness
mixes with that pumpkin spice scent
I’ve been wearing for weeks
as he nips at my neck
like the next Bela Lugosi.
His balalaika-calloused fingers bend
my left arm back on shiny satin sheets
whiter than raita and the
gauzy ghosts lining lawns tonight
while Jamie Lee Curtis’s screams
streaming from the TV
repeating the Halloween canon
harmonize with the
traffic and rain beyond the bay window
and the cadence of my candy corn breath,
swelling into a soundtrack
to expand the sweetness of
this spit-spattered Samhain.
Poet:
Language boffin and lifelong Halloween fan Adrian Slonaker hangs out among the drizzly streets and autumn leaves of downtown Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. Adrian’s work, which has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize, has appeared in WINK: Writers in the Know, The Be Zine, Gnashing Teeth, The Pangolin Review and others.
