Revisionist Poetry – “Inheritances of October” – Inherited Halloweens, v.2

Inheriting the Halloween trunks,
we lift out years wrapped in cardboard
— paper ghosts, bent witches,
plastic skulls with their fixed bright grins.

Each object keeps its small empire
of porch-light, wind, and ringing doorbells;
each one remembers
the shriek of a child half-laughing,
half-convinced the dark has teeth.

These relics do not sleep entirely.
They wait in their tissue paper coffins,
their hollow eyes still staring
with the patience of old mischief.

And yet how carefully the season returns:
the thrill of a sudden fright,
the safe terror of make-believe,
the pleasure of being haunted
without ever being harmed.

So we unseal the boxes again,
and the house fills with old delight,
as if fear itself had learned
to come home each year
and hang its masks in the hall.