Nameless Creek Road
Body hanging from tree mistaken for Halloween decoration
–Associated Press
I didn’t think of Halloween, but only,
silence now, branches sharp against
my window pitiless as every hands
I’ve known. So what the neighbors thought
I was a gag? I’ve been a joke before.
So what they let me hang for hours, honked
their horns? A father held his child’s hand
crossing my yard to the bus, pointed at
my shoes, one scarlet slingback in the grass,
one swaying on my foot above their heads.
Isn’t that realistic? the father said.
I dragged the ladder up the basement stairs,
darkest part of night, made sure the metal
clattered in the yard. It took me half an hour
to climb the maple’s strongest arm, to tie
the rope around my neck. No one left
the bed, pulled a housecoat on, to ask
was I all right. In morning light, no one
recognized their neighbor twenty years.
So what they tell their kids to misbehave
and end up next to me? That night, alone
with every whisper, what I’d done to scare
my husband off, the leaves left drying
on their stems rattled in the wind.
And from somewhere down the street,
the smell of wood, of apples falling from
their trees, sweet with rot, with loss.
– andrea scarpino