in my cupboards

skeletons hang

still mouths strangers to the songs they sang

 

I take them out

bone-dry and hoar

wan skulls shorn of the locks they wore

 

pelvic sculptures

sharp as a blade

silent shrines to hectic love they made

 

bereft of flesh

that lit my fire

no lithe joints but threads of thin wire

 

hot tears drop on

memories clean,

picked by time's vultures this Halloween

 

night falls, the rope

I untangle,

in her two-faced wardrobe I'll dangle