Sometimes I remember my neighbor opening the door as a witch

when I was five & screaming the whole damn evening even when she took her green mask off.

 

Screams sound different on Halloween but everything sounds different on Halloween

like the look on my son’s face when Prince died, running outside into the rain, the sky

 

upside down, hitting his skin on a delay, puddles that I have stood in he has stood in & almost drowned. Trick or treat, I am pulling

 

candy out of a time machine & at the door is Prince in tight blue jeans so young &

two kids as my grandparents together in India & my father as a zombie.

 

My favorite are the fraternal twins as Jesus & Mary & of course the Krishna, skin bluer

than the sky or a police uniform or an instagram ocean. Treat or trick, they

 

all say. I want my life to be this blue, something to paint with, something to worship. 

I want a costume that is most like this because this day is the closest thing to prayer I know. 

 

I know what my son saw when he was in the rain after Prince died looking not at the breaking

of a storm but a sea of blue imitation gods. I know

 

what I see when I open the door & put on the mask, over the face that is also a memory,

that is also mine. Welcoming the night next to the witch holding a screaming child.