The precious stones on our foreheads, our bodies
tired of the weight of brocades, our nostrils
burned with the smoke of perfumes. Around my
pulse, a flat steal bracelet and my pulse beat as it
willed, losing its human cadence, thumping a
savage frenzy. The lamentations of flutes, the
double chant of wind through our slender bones.
The crackling of bones with Halloween
labyrinthian smiles.

As we walked along, flames burst from the street
lamps; we swallowed the asphalt road with a
jungle roar and the houses with their closed eyes
and geranium eye-lashes; swallowed the telegraph
poles trembling with messages; swallowed stray
cats, hills, hedges, Halloween labyrinthian smiles
on the keyhole. The door moaning, opening. Her
smile closed. A nightingale disleafing melliferous
honeysuckle. Honey-suckled. Fluted fingers. The
house opened its green gate mouth and swallowed
us whole.

The record was scratched, the crooning broken.
The pieces cut our feet. It was dawn and we were
lost. We put back the houses on the road, aligned
the telegraph poles along the river and the stray cats
jumping across the road. We put back the hills. The
road came out of our mouth like a velvet ribbon – it
lay there like serpentine. The houses opened their
eyes. The keyhole had an ironic curve, like a question
mark. We carried Halloween’s fetiches , its marionettes,
its fortune telling cards worn at the corners.

The windows of the city were stained and splintered
with rainlight and the blood she drew from us with each
lie, each deception, each costume. Beneath the skin of
her cheeks we saw ashes: would she die before we
had joined in perfidious union? The eyes, the hands,
the sense that only Halloween’s labyrinth knows.