Hallows Eve

by Adrian Ford

at 5:00 a.m.
I walk the hood
good neighbors sleep
behind their banks of mum
chrysanthemum, the sun
only an odor of first light
I am a sight, a bat in my black coat
last night we had rain
this pouting maple weeps inside again
in other trees
leaves dither like the hands
of old men in a home (one flew away!)
beside the porch-lit clapboards
on a chain
a planter is a spider
and everywhere the cinched
white pillowcases with bug eyes
poor baby boos
flutter like taboo
poems on white paper
tenuous in mind