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Day of the Dead

Deron Eckert

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All the witches tell me the veil is thin,
but all I can see from this side of the veil
are the jack-o’-lantern’s innards coated
in a piceous film of speckled mold. This
formerly spherical fellow’s eyes are windows
to a shallow void of nothingness. Suppose
it’s not nothingness. It was orange with life
not long ago, so I will call it grief instead.
Husk has succumbed to gradual implosion.
Mouth has caved right in to the point
the teeth no longer hold a hint of a point.
Reminds me of great-aunts and uncles,
the ones who always unsettled me a bit
when they would remove their dentures
to grin ear-to-ear at me with all gums,
their false teeth chattering in one hand,
laughing right along with their hollow maws.
What little is left of All Hallows’ Eve
smiles the same. If I were not the man
who carved the smile set with rows of blocks
mimicking teeth that could have closed
if a jack-o’-lantern had a choice to stop
smiling, I may not know this smile to be one
filed down to a toothless, vacuous grin.
Had I never known how youthful it appeared
before the decay brought by time reared
what I have always considered an ugly head,
imagine I would see only a smile from afar,
nothing but the still-burning candle when near.

__________

Deron Eckert is a poet and writer who lives in Lexington, Kentucky. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Blue Mountain Review, Appalachian Journal, Rattle, Stanchion, Beaver Magazine, The Fourth River, and elsewhere. He can be found on Instagram at @deroneckert.

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