I didn’t know what pants
to wear for Halloween
but it is nice to think
of better pairs
I could have picked
while we take this ride
through the suburbs, past
the sign that says here begins
the land of phantoms.
It is nice to think about pants
and regrets and other things
I’d share with you to cultivate
a healthy relationship, such as
will my press-on claws
be misconstrued
though they look lovely
against the automatic windows
of your oversized car
which you drive fast
like Nosferatu
driving his horses
in strobe-lit silent film time
but you are younger
and come with hair on your head
not your hands
this thick October night
when to be honest
the air is too moist—it feels
like biting into a chocolate
with gelatinous insides
that make candy-colored clowns
of my teeth.
Sometimes I don’t think
you like me enough.
I don’t think I’m your
sexual partner in the 8%
of dreams where scientists say
you have sexual relations
with the one you really love,
if anyone calls sexual relations
what they have in their dreams.
I should have worn tighter pants
or an animal costume
with a name like Busty Cat.
Do you have an animal?
I’d like to see your animal.
I’m looking at you
through colored contacts
that make me resemble
the vampires I’ve always loved
but I’d rather have
their immortality
than their eyes, even though
the beautiful vampire people
call themselves monsters
and complain how hard it is
to live forever
when they cry about their
beautiful, seductive, immortal lives,
but everyone knows it’s harder
to be a less attractive monster
who’s going to die
and speaking of death
I’ve got this cut on my arm
and the bandage feels wet
but I want you to touch it
and check and not be repulsed
unless you find some erotic charge
in repulsion and then
we’d be getting somewhere, like
have you ever been
to candy heaven?
I know a few things
and I don’t think a woman wears
the same perfume as her sister
unless she wants trouble
because even fake scents
belong to particular people
and you can’t take that away
any more than you can take
their way of seeing, like how
I see bright dying leaves
swirl under streetlights as if we’re all
about to be sucked up
by an expensive vacuum cleaner
I’d like to ride through the air,
calling myself the witch of suck
if it just—if it weren’t
for this bandage and the moistness
and the street numbers
that keep ticking up
when you drive past my address
and I know if you get
to my sister’s street
you’ve gone too far.

Original appearance in Bedfellows Magazine.

Laura Spagnoli is the author of the chapbook My Dazzledent Days (ixnay press). Her poems have appeared in various places, including Jupiter 88, ONandOnScreen, and Apiary, and her story “A Cut Above” was published in the collection Philadelphia Noir. She lives in Philadelphia.