You disappear up pull-down stairs
into cluttered gloom to search
for our mothballed cache of Halloween.
I pace below, wait for you to tender
taped up boxes, bins, bags bulging
with who knows what imagined treasures.
Nothing’s marked. For years we’ve stashed
kids’ report cards, trophies, dolls,
my mother’s hats, your great-grand’s swords.
One-by-one, you push, I pull, as our hunt-
and-retrieve job blossoms into cleanout.
We’ll tackle it now while we’re still able.
On our front steps I tear a carton open—
a jumble of frayed toe shoes, tutus, ribbons.
From inside the bin’s dank innards, silverfish
rush and reel in cold light, dart beneath
the porch, gone before I smash them, but more
come flash dashing from a bag of magazines.
Their teardrop bodies skitter, stippled pearl,
tick-tap to vanish, while we shake discarded
exoskeletons out from ancient book leaves.
Finally you find our Dollar Tree straw-strapped
scarecrows, witches, ghosts —all wrecked
but for a plastic pumpkin and one skeleton mask.
Side-by-side, on the steps, we decide we’ll toss
it all except for the one bin of fairy tales
we’d sealed up tight, the pumpkin, and the skull.
