Maschera di Venezia by: Rose Troy, Acrylic, 2018
It’s there.
In the Apartments I pass.
The pencils in my back pocket.
Plump Pumpkins and Jack-o-Lanterns.
Heraldry of Halloween.
The problem child of yellow and red.
Loud, bright, harsh, and tense.
Energy enough to wake the dead!
Is that why it fits so well?
In the candles and the candy,
The light of street lamps,
The harvest moon rising slow to the east.
A color for ghosts
Left in death wanting,
Walking, unseen, in costumed crowds.
Guiding and guarding,
Under the watchful eye of an amber God
As he retreats below the horizon.
The autumn fire still rustles in the wind,
Falling like paper,
And painting the neighborhood in the color of the month.