With Pink Eye

Halloween, 2008 / No. 21

I want to dress

as a white lie,

a unicorn, a schoolgirl,

all of the above, blended.

Prefer the magical over

the deformed, lopsided,

or undead.

If this holiday is ruled

by the amygdala,

I am raging against fear

with glitter, that small pinpoint

in the brain, all lit up.

I smudge

pigment powder in oh!

around each eye,

the hot itch of a nineteen-seventies

polyester power suit.

What are you?

a. A 1976 secretary with pink eye

b. Stevie Nicks, the heavy years, with pink eye

c. A new wave raccoon

d. Lazy, with pink eye

You are dressed like an emergency.

Hold test results in your fist.

Rain shit-coloured toffee in

waxy orange-yellow wrappers over

your stubborn zombie face.

You actively haunt,

an appetite for dynamic disruption of truth.

You can’t argue with a spreadsheet.

I pink-eye you when the fire alarm rings,

the dance floor empties,

the fire trucks provide a spotlight,

the scrappy underage Britney drag queen

and I toss her Cabbage Patch Kid baby.

You smoke while I pursue perfect quips,

smear pink across your jaw.