All Saints’

Caravaggio’s face in the sunken pumpkin.

Bulbs rotting in the damp garage—still

no hard frost. Lamplight, low moon.

It’s that time when corners deepen

and the frame won’t stay untilted.

A tendency toward extremes, one doctor

diagnosed. It’s just that out the window

stands a row of white globes too long now.

Too long. Why do you keep looking?

When the child asks, of the man

in the moon, who cut off his head,

who says turn away, turn away from that.

A mystery of faith, as it were,

that the light indeed returns.