-the sugar eaters-

1.

two brothers swirl across the slippery

scatter rugs of the house like whirlwinds

through a Dogpatch trailer park;

the ghost, howling from room to room,

the scissor-cut hem of its altered bedsheet, trailing.

the younger vampire follows dripping blood-
red from the rubbery fanged insert; its hands,
twisted claws as it growls like an animal. but the pink

ballerina sits on the couch without distraction

quietly peeling back the glitter of paper, releasing the sweet
aroma as she would the skin of a morning’s fruit.

the torn, silvery wraps of our goods,

strewn across the floors, tabletops

and the cushions of easy chairs, drift
upward in our wakes.

2.

our young mother sues for peace.
our young father threatens with baths,

neither recognizing their combined culpability.

grandmother prays the rosary,

her aged, agile thumb running
bead-over-bead ending in the distance
at the link of a nickel-plated crucifix.

grandfather rocks in his wooden chair
keeping time with the quickening

beat of his anxious heart and all, save

the ghost now gone.

Halloween / the early years